


Rubatosis

by minna_v



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8309608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minna_v/pseuds/minna_v
Summary: An eventual Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character plot.Erin knew that surviving alone was just not an option. After losing her brother to the hands of the Undead, she finds companionship in an ex-military man she meets in the midst of giving up. She may soon find out that not giving up was the best option she made so far in this new world. Especially when she is able to share those feelings with a person she would have never found herself ever getting along with before.[Set from Season 4, Episode 10 and onwards]





	1. A Saviour

Her head whipped round at the sound of footsteps following her, never easing up. She wasn't quite sure how long she had been running. Months - years? - of the same repetitive running. It was becoming tiresome, it was becoming lonesome and quite frankly, she was nearing the end of her tether with it all. It would have been easier to just give up. Nobody would have blamed her. There was nobody there to blame her. Max wasn't there anymore. He couldn't urge her to run faster, he couldn't call her out for her stupid choices, he couldn't tell her stupid jokes to keep that smallest of smiles residing on her face. Max wasn't there because of her. It was her fault that he was now buried in the middle of the woods somewhere in South Carolina beneath a thin layer of crisp autumn leaves. She shuddered just thinking about the manner in which she had left him. There hadn't even been time for a proper goodbye, let alone a proper burial.

Heat bore down upon the dark haired girl as she stumbled clumsily up the muddy verge from the edge of the woods, the thick soles of her boots slapping down on the pavement of the road once more. Weakness had never overcome her this way before. She'd been a sickly child once, but that was in the past. She was now twenty nine, and sickness was not an option. It hadn't been for a long time now. The sun was relentless as she carried on at a pace that reached as fast as she could go, trying her best to put a reasonable amount of distance between herself and those... things... that were coming after her. Her mind had not been creative when it came down to naming them. Her mind had been at a blank, as it had for most of this journey. She'd settled on a multitude of nicknames to call them. Graspers. Grabbers. Clampers. The Undead. She tended to avoid saying the last one. It made it all seem a bit too real. But, how could it be any less real than this? This had been her life for God knows how long now. She couldn't remember. She could barely remember if it was two or three weeks since she had left Max behind.

Max was her brother. Tall Max, with the dirty blonde hair and the twinkling grey eyes that held many untold stories behind them. Untold stories that now would, simply, never be told. Max had been a people pleaser, a class clown, a dad dancer. He was everything that a parent could possibly dream of for a son. Kind, generous. Selfless. All the things that, as the days continued to pass, she found that she was not. It had started off as a group of them. Her, Max, their mother and their father. A week after the world went to shit, they decided to pack up and get moving. They filled the boot of their family car with all the necessities they thought might come in handy, and braved the unbelievable scenes on the streets and roads that laid ahead of them. Max's girlfriend, Jenna, had joined them. One week passed, their mother was gone. Two and a half weeks passed, their father was gone. They joined a camp. A small camp, not far from their hometown in Georgia. There was Ryan, Oliver, Christian. Kara, Lucy. One by one, they went. Jenna was the last to go. Max had tried to hold out for her as long as he could. However, this world was not the same. Even a person's efforts were not the same. So, it had been her and Max, alone. For as long as she could remember now.

Once again, she glanced over her shoulder. The Graspers seemed to become faster with every step they took. Every step she made, they challenged her with at least two of their own. Three, four of them. She wouldn't be able to take them down alone. She was weak. Her gun had only two bullets to its name and her hunting knife was tucked away somewhere in her backpack. Her eyes were beginning to see black dots in front of them as she pursued forward, hauling her bag up higher on her shoulders and heaving out a heavy breath. Safety had to be somewhere. She couldn't be the only person walking these roads. There had to be someone. Just one other person, at least. Sweat dripped mercilessly down her forehead and her rising chest became clammy with the residue. She didn't dare look back another time, for she knew that they would be closer, and the panic that she would feel at that would be unbearable. It would create more problems than it was worth. Running would have been the smartest idea right now, but she didn't have it in her. She had no fight left in her at all. It would be easier to sprawl upon the hot concrete of the ground and close her eyes and just - 

A gunshot. An alarming sound that put her in an even more dangerous position than she was in before. One of the Grapsers was floored behind her. Then another. Then the third. And then the last one. She wasn't stupid. She knew that the gunshots would attract more, and that she had no choice but to keep on going, but she was more concerned about what she would face when she met the gun wielding stranger out on the roads with her. Surely, she had met her maker. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the surrounding area. She'd not seen anyone ahead of her before now, and that was surely where the shots had been aimed from. Finally, when her eyes did fall upon the stranger, she was surprised. Eyes wide kind of surprised.

He ambled his way over to her, a confident stride. His red hair was cut into a perfectly straight buzz and his facial hair seemed well groomed as well. He was dressed in a khaki t-shirt and a pair of camoflauge slacks. A military man? Or, at least pretending to be. She had met a few of those in the last few months of her strained living. He didn't lower the gun as he approached her. There was no surprises there. You couldn't trust anybody in this world. She had learned that the hard way. Her hands were held out in front of her, a display of innocence. A display of desperation. A display of mercy. Despite not having done anything, she felt like pleading for her life. If he was anything like the men she had already met on these roads, she knew she should turn on her heel and run in the direction she had come from as fast as she could. But, perhaps she had already given up.

"You got any weapons?" He asked in a gruff voice, jerking his head towards the bag hitched up on her shoulder.

He was going to steal her things instead. The only things that she had left to keep her alive. Reluctantly, but with a timid stance, she removed the bag from her shoulder and dropped it to the ground in front of her. She slowly reached her foot out and kicked the bag towards the redheaded stranger. He eyed her cautiously for a second more before he knelt to the ground, unzipping the plain black backpack and rooting through it. He didn't remove any of the items. He simply straightened his back and resumed his authoritive standing position. She let out a shaky breath.

"You alone?" He fired her with another question - the question that they all asked, no matter who they were.

"Yes," Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I did have other people. But... they're all gone now. It's just me. I'm not a threat to you. I swear it."

She wasn't quite sure why she was bothering to make an attempt to beg for her life. If he had already decided her fate, then it was a done deal. A meek girl like her would not be able to reverse the decisions of such a powerful and strong looking man like himself. Yet, he seemed to remain cautious. His eyes wandered around the area, looking out for any immediate threats that surrounded them. Then his eyes glazed over as he looked at the small heap of Graspers that he had taken down behind her. When he had seen her struggling along, he had considered just leaving her to her own devices. She seemed persistent enough. But, as he had continued to watch her, he had realised how close she was to giving up. He had wanted to yell at her, tell her to move quicker, or to do something. Anything. Anything to stop them latching onto her. That's when he had had to step in. When he knew that she was just going to let whatever happened to her, happen.

"What's your name?" He asked the slight girl before him.

"Erin," She barely breathed out. "Erin. Thank you... for helping me back there. I'm sure I would have been done for if you hadn't have stepped in."

"Abraham Ford. Yeah... Looked like you would have been. What are you doing out here? Where are you headed?"

Erin wasn't quite sure whether or not she was able to trust this gruff looking man. What did she have to lose, though? She ran a hand through her messy hair and sighed. It was an interesting question Abraham had asked. Where was she heading? She hadn't known the answer to that for a fair few months now. The game plan had been to just keep on moving and not look back. That hadn't been working well for her so far, however.

"I don't know anymore," She shrugged. "Everywhere I've been is a dead end. I don't have the slightest clue where could possibly be any safer than the next place. I've been out on the road now for as long as I can remember. Ducking into houses for a few days every now and again, but nothing more than that."

"Seems like everybody's in the same boat. There's nowhere safe to go anymore."

"Are you on your own? You're the first person I've seen around here for days."

"Like you. Had people, but they're not here anymore. You're the first person I've come across in at least a week."

Erin nodded. The world was more wiped out than she had first thought. Wiping her sweaty palms over the thighs of her jeans, she looked Abraham Ford fully in the eyes for the first time since they had encountered one another. He looked like he wouldn't take any shit. He looked tough and he looked like he could handle his own plenty well enough. Erin knew that she had shown to him that she was the opposite - she was the person who could not handle herself. Why would he want to be dragged down by a woman who simply accepted that death was round the corner? Nobody should accept their lifeline that easily.

Abraham looked the young woman up and down with narrowed eyes. Although she acted as weak, she didn't look it. Her dark hair was scraped up in a messy ponytail, tendrils framing her slimmed face. Her grey eyes were alert and constantly flitting around. She was always on the lookout. That was a valued trait now. She was slim, but Abraham took notice of the toning of her arms that showed an element of strength, no matter how small it was. She might not have been fighting when he found her, but she had to be a fighter to get this far alone.

"Right," Abraham nodded ahead at the road. "Guess we better get going on our way then."

Erin had once been inquisitive and would have questioned every other word in a person's statement, but she knew then not to question the 'we'. A small smile lit up her face as she started to trail along behind the bulky Abraham Ford. This was the first time she had felt relief in a long time. He was her saviour.


	2. A Bump in the Road

Their flirting made Erin sick to the stomach. She groaned a little to herself as she tilted her head against the window of the car, staring out at the passing scenery and hoping that they would remember the two other members of their group in the back of the military truck soon.

Eugene had taken a different approach to watching them compared to Erin. He just stared intensely at the two of them, witnessing every little detail of every little interaction that they shared. Erin rolled her eyes at his creepy manner, turning to pick out the building dirt from beneath her fingernails. She wasn't sure why she bothered. The dirt would build up again within hours. This wasn't a world where personal hygeine took main priority. It wasn't on the list of priorities at all.

"Too bad Fort Benning was a bust out," Abraham called out over his shoulder in his Southern drawl.

A small noise of agreement escaped Erin's mouth. A bust out was one word to describe it. She tilted her head back against the hot leather seat in the back of the truck. She had been so sure that they were getting somewhere. Anywhere. But as usual, it ended up being a dead end. It was no surprise anymore. You just learnt to haul your bag up again and get on with it.

"But lucky for us," Abraham continued. "We have the good ol' doc with us now. And this doc is gonna help us out when we get to D.C., right?"

"That's an affirmative."

Eugene's voice was dully serious. Rosita turned round to look at him from the passenger seat, shooting Erin a brief mocking smirk at the tone of this voice, to which she returned a response in the form of a raised eyebrow. Neither of them had been too sure whether or not to believe Eugene when he had told them that he was a scientist and that he knew a way to access the cure. But, they hadn't been in any place to reject his claim. He had told them that if they helped him travel to Washington, protected, he would let them in on all the secret details about the cure of this outbreak and thus help save the world. Erin didn't think he looked much like a doctor or a scientist. Especially not one with a cure. But, when she and Abraham had discovered the mullet bearing man on a run, there seemed like there had been no other option.

"You're sure it's Washington we're headed to?" Erin asked him. "Seems like a long way to go for this so-called cure."

The older man's face dropped a little in panic but he quickly recovered and shook his head, explaining that it would obviously have to be Washington as that's where the White House was and where the President would be, the cure would be too. Obviously. He had scientist friends up that way, apparently. People he used to work with before the world turned to shit, apparently.

"I wish I'd been smart enough to be a doctor," Rosita said airily.

"You coulda been anything you wanted, sweetness," Abraham shot her a flirtatious look out of the corner of his eye and the younger woman giggled, showcasing her perfect teeth through full and luscious lips.

Erin wondered how many times a day she rolled her eyes while being surrounded by these three people. She thought back to a time when it had only been her and Abraham. She had formed a sort of sibling bond with him. A bond that caused her to reminisce about Max and their final days spent travelling together as a pair. After two weeks or so of travelling just the two of them, they had encountered Rosita. Erin remembered mulling over how somebody could look so well put together during the apocalypse. She certainly hadn't managed to maintain that look.

Abraham had taken an instant liking to Rosita, it had been obvious. He never spoke about his previous group, but Erin had discovered that he'd had a wife and two children. She had wondered if his wife was anything like Rosita. She strongly doubted it. Rosita was some sort of Goddess in this world. Full of life in a place so dead. Erin had resented her at first - a sort of high school jealousy. She was pretty and she looked good in short shorts. What was there to like? Rosita was the kind of girl who would have teased Erin in school for having braces and handing in her homework on time. However, Erin had found that she actually got along with the younger woman. She might have been a little wayward at times, but Rosita had a good heart. Erin enjoyed having another woman in the group. It had been a long time since she had interacted with one. 

The three of them had then stumbled across Eugene, and ended up saving him by the skin of his teeth. Then, here they were. Their apocalypse survival group. A really crap apocalypse survival group, but an apocalypse survival group nonetheless. Nobody had a handbook on how to survive this, so they were just having to make do with going along with it.

"Erin," Rosita looked in the rearview mirror at Erin, grabbing her attention. "What was it that you said you did before all of this went down?"

"I was a teacher. Third grade."

 

Erin recalled back to those days. Simpler days. Happier days. She had been teaching a class of roughly thirty eight and nine year olds. She'd enjoyed her job. Everyone said that a teacher was kind, honest, selfless and could see through any facade. She wondered how many of those personality traits had been carried over with her to the apocalypse. She wasn't Miss Ashby or Miss A anymore. She was Erin, a twenty nine year old who had somehow managed to survive a situation she was nowhere near cut out for. So far.

Teaching had never provided her with any life skills for such a scenario. Sure, she'd had to go on many first aid training courses, and yes this had proved beneficial a few times to her in the last few weeks, but other than that? She didn't know how to shoot a gun. At least not well. She didn't know how to use any weapons. Her father had been fond of guns. He would go shooting three, four times a week down a range out near their old family home. Hunting trips at the weekend with his friends were regular occurences. Erin had never had to learn to pick up a gun. Just pepper spray. At the beginning of all this, she had not even had access to a gun. The only reason she had managed to get her hands on a pistol - that she had no idea the name or style or make of - was because she had prised one from the cold hands of one of the many bodies she had stumbled across, before they became animated into an Undead.

Erin glanced down to her nails. They were bitten down to the beds, red raw from worry and anxious thoughts. She was not the woman she once was. She returned her head to leaning against the window as she vaguely listened to Rosita blab on about something in the background. A lot of all of this became background noise to her now. None of this was important. It was all just to pass time. 

"Well, would you look at that," Abraham let out a low whistle as the truck bounded over some bumps in the rocky road they were travelling along.

All of them turned to look at the looming structure of a prison in front of them. A large prison, somewhere that would make for a good camp. However, it didn't look safe at all. Erin's eyes widened at the knocked down fences and the masses of Grasper bodies scattered all around. There had to have been people there recently, otherwise, it wouldn't have been so surrounded. Erin had learnt that the Graspers were attracted to noise and to human smell. That was when they crowded.

"Not all of them are dead," Erin pointed out, leaning forward in her seat so that she was positioned between the driver and the passenger, pointing up ahead.

A young woman with dark hair was beating at one of the corpses hanging over her and an Asian man. The man seemed to be knocked out cold. Abraham put the car in drive and rolled up closer, forcing the wheels of the four by four over the lifeless bodies of a few of the Graspers. He had the windows rolled down and was leaning his head out as he approached.

"Hope you enjoyed the show, assholes!"

Erin was surprised to hear the woman yell at their approaching vehicle. With a slight grunt, Abraham took the lead, swinging open his door and stepping out into the fresh air. The others followed. They all stepped out and analysed the situation around them, as Abraham had taught all of them to do in any possible life or death scenario. Abraham had taught them all a lot. Erin stood with one hand on her hip, the other lingering over the gun in the holster strapped around her thigh.

"You got a damn mouth on you, you know that?" Abraham snapped. "What else you got?"


	3. Inoperable

Eugene and Erin sat pressed up against their respective windows, the woman and her knocked out friend propped up in between the two of them. Both of their eyes flickered to the two strangers every now and again as Abraham drove along. He too had his eyes trained on them in the rearview mirror. Erin nervously shook her knee, a habit she had acquired, as she watched the woman tighten her grip on her gun. She wouldn't shoot them, surely. They were helping her. 

She was making note of all the street signs that they passed on the back of her hand with a pen she must have picked up somewhere. Erin narrowed her eyes at her actions but shrugged it off. Why should she trust them? There was nobody left to trust. It was a deadly sort of silent in the truck and Erin cleared her throat awkwardly, turning back to the woman. Abraham watched her in the mirror again, as if checking up to see that she wasn't doing anything that he would class as reckless or immature.

"Erin," The former woman offered the stranger an outstretched hand.

The stranger's eyes narrowed, like Erin's had done, and she stared at her hand as if it was some sort of alien object. Almost reluctantly, she placed her own warm hand in Erin's and they shared a short handshake. A handshake that Erin's father would have called worthless.

"Tara," The stranger introduced herself. "And my friend here... this is Glenn."

"Nice to meet you. That's Abraham driving, Rosita there, and that's Eugene. So, if you don't mind me asking, what happened back there at the prison? Was it just you two?"

"No... No, uh, there were more of us."

That was all Tara said. She didn't elaborate. Erin didn't press her. She just nodded her head and turned back to watching the scenery fly by out of the window. Abraham cursed in the drivers seat and Erin craned her neck as she realised he was coming to a stop. A car was blocking the road up ahead. Erin sighed to herself when she saw that three Graspers were stumbling towards their vehicle. Didn't they ever have a time out?

As usual, their typical procedure of all piling out of the truck ensued. Glenn remained slumped as Tara joined them, following Erin at her side. Erin noticed that she had her rifle propped and ready in her hands. Not a gun person herself, she reached down to her boot, pulling out the hunting knife that was wedged between the leather and the thick wool of her sock. As Tara made to shoot, Abraham put his hand up to stop her.

"Put that gun down," He commanded.

Tara hesitated, but then followed through with his order as she watched him lunge at the corpses, beating them down with a crowbar that he had produced. Erin and Rosita seemed to watch almost lazily as he eliminated the threat, whilst Eugene stood tensely to one side as he always did. Erin looked over at Tara, at the baffled expression on her face as she watched Abraham almost joyously beat the holy crap out of the Graspers.

"That's how you get rid of Walkers?" Tara asked in almost a whisper.

"Walkers?" Erin turned to her with the smallest of quirked smiles. "Is that what you guys call them?"

"That's what... that's what Glenn and his group called them."

Erin paused, mulling over Tara's words. They weren't in the same group? They had just found one another? She just nodded her head, thinking about the term. Walkers. She liked it more than Graspers. It sounded less violent, less threatening. It had a better ring to it. She smiled sardonically to herself as Abraham turned back around, a grin on his face hidden beneath his red beard.

"I've never seen someone smiling when killing those things," Tara said.

"Hm. He's got all the reason to be smiling when he can kill them. When he can't? Let me know what his face looks like then."

Erin retreated back to the truck. Tara hastily followed her and then they all resumed their previous seating positions, Abraham starting off on their journey once more. Erin propped her elbow up on the open window and leant her head in her hand, listening to Rosita spiel off some story about her first or second boyfriend or something along those lines. It was usually something along those lines. Erin had almost fallen asleep to the sound of her words and the feel of the sun beating down on her, but it was interrupted by a stirring to her left.

Her eyes glanced over to Glenn who was beginning to wake up. The Asian man looked immediately confused at his surroundings as he blinked a few times. His eyes rested on all the members in the truck for a couple of seconds before he started to kick up a fuss.

He smashed on the back window, demanding that Abraham pull the truck to a stop. Ever the stubborn one, Abraham just swore at him to stop himself, continuing to push on driving. Eugene tried to silence Glenn by clapping a hand over his mouth, but the Asian pushed him away, furiously pulling himself up into a sitting position and lunging out of his seat to make a dive for Abraham. Abraham swerved the wheel in his hands as he tried to avoid Glenn's grabbing hands, resembling those of the Walkers that were out there. Erin stretched across Tara, trying to latch onto the dishevelled man, but he shook her off, and in the end, Abraham had no choice but to stop the truck, fury residing in his eyes.

Glenn stretched across Eugene and wrenched the door of the truck open, stumbling out into the heat of the day, barely keeping his balance as he stood on the road. Tara was hasty to follow him. Erin frowned and also got out of the truck, hands on her hips as she surveyed the two of them.

"I'm leaving," Glenn announced as he looked at the three strangers, and then back to Tara. "Are you coming or not?"

Tara nodded quickly at his offer and both of them reassembled their weapons as part of their attire before making to set off. Abraham was red with fury as he surged out of the truck. He'd had a short temper the whole time Erin had known him, but she had never quite seen him blow up like this before. Rosita shot a sideways glance at the other woman, but Erin just shrugged.

"You're disrupting the mission!" Abraham yelled.

"The mission?" Glenn snorted, turning back. "What 'mission'?"

"Eugene here... He knows exactly what caused the beginning of this shit. Government officials have set to meet with him in Washington."

Erin realised how stupid it sounded now that Abraham said it aloud. She shot a look at Eugene who had his lips pursed together in a thin line. Like Hell were there officials in Washington waiting to meet him, but she wasn't going to be the one to break the news to the rest of the group. That was on his head.

"Government officials?" Glenn was in as much disbelief as she was. "You really believe that? My group tried everything. We were at the C.D.C. Nobody knows anything."

"Our boy Eugene does."

Glenn just snorted and shook his head, turning and taking off to leave again. What were they to do? They couldn't force him to accompany them because they needed more manpower. Free will was still a thing in this new world. Erin glanced over at Abraham as he made a move to grab ahold of Glenn, in an attempt to force him to stay. With that, Glenn turned and punched the ex-military man square in the jaw. There was a gasp from Rosita and Tara at the crunch. Erin cringed back at the sound his fist made connecting with Abe's face. There was a pause, but Abraham was quick to retaliate, lunging for Glenn. The two of them entered a fully fledged fight. Erin cursed under her breath and rushed forward alongside Rosita, attempting to intervene and stop tings before they got out of hand beyond repair. She caught onto Glenn's shoulder in the scuffle, and tried to wrench him back, but he knocked her off, his anger causing him to be stronger than she ever imagined he normally would be. Both her and Rosita unsuccessfully tried to break up the wrestling for a good couple of minutes.

It wasn't until gunfire sounded that all of them stopped, whipping their heads round to look at Eugene. He had opened fire on a small herd of Walkers that had begun to approach the noisy group. They hadn't even realised they were there, due to being so caught up in the chaos of the petty fight that belonged more in high school than it did out on the road to survival. Erin pulled her hunting knife out, going to take down the corpses, but Abraham got to his feet and caught onto her shoulder, holding her back from doing so. Eugene was not the perfected shot. She wasn't either, but her shooting was nowhere near as haphazard as his was. All of their eyes turned at the sound of metal on metal. Eugene had shot through the gas tank of the truck. Erin watched in despair as petrol dripped in a steady flow, spilling out onto the scorching road beneath out feet along with the thick, black blood of the Walkers.

"See?" Eugene sounded almost impressed with himself. "Got them all without help from any of y'all."

"Yeah," Rosita snapped. "And look what you've done to the truck in the process!"

Eugene's eyes lingered on the dripping fluid. Erin ran a hand across her tired face. They would have to go on foot in this unbearable Southern heat. Her tank top was already clinging tightly to her body with the sweat that she had exerted. Glenn muttered something to Tara and once more, they both turned to leave the scene that the group had recklessly created.

"Might as well go along with them," Rosita shrugged. "The truck's inoperable. We can't do anything else."

"She's right," Erin nodded.

The two of them took after the strangers after reaching into the back of the truck and pulling their duffel bags out, swinging them over their shoulders. Neither Tara or Glenn objected to their presence, so they guessed that they were on the same thought track as them about manpower. Eventually, Eugene and Abraham fell into step behind them. Erin was sure that it had taken a lot for Abe to admit defeat, but he was a practical man. He wasn't stupid enough to allow himself to stand roasting in this heat over something that couldn't be fixed.

It seemed that with every corner that they turned, there was a new path that they were forced to take. Erin was growing steadily exhausted with the many route turns they had had to make in the last few weeks. She had no idea how many more they were in for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for the hits & Kudos on my first fanfiction piece.   
> Currently, I'm not following a show transcript, so I am aware that speech is incorrect and some of the scenes are not as they are in the TV show. However, I probably will switch onto a transcript over the next couple of chapters, as I know that it would be a huge shame to miss out on Eugene's sarky comments.  
> When I say eventual Daryl Dixon/OFC plot, I really do mean eventual. I hope that you don't mind! I'd quite like to take the time to character build and introduce a relationship with all of the characters. But of course, once Daryl is introduced, I won't hold back.  
> Thank you again.


	4. Homebound

Six figures trekked along the train tracks in the middle of the forest for what seemed like the thousandth time. Erin wasn't even sure how long they had been walking for now, following blood painted signs that 'Maggie' had left behind for Glenn. They were following the signs all the way to a survivor camp that went by the name Terminus. Nobody had questioned Glenn's determination to get there, although everyone was starting to lag behind. He was not a fan of taking breaks. He made that much clear. There was little time for them to rest, and when they did, it was only for a couple of hours. They were always up again at the first break of light, carrying on their endless journey.

Erin trudged clumsily across the rails towards Glenn who always lead the group at the front. He very rarely spoke to any of them and kept his thoughts to himself. However, Glenn didn't mind Erin from the new survivors he met that much. She voiced her opinion when she had one, and sometimes graced the group with a piece of sarcastic humour, but other than that, she was not much of an outspoken person. She had a quiet strength that he could feel from afar and an almost relaxing smile, when she did smile every now and then. Unlike the others, Erin did not ask thousands of questions and she didn't press him for answers that he didn't want to give. The others had been getting on Glenn's nerves for the most part of their journey. Tara and Erin were the only ones who hadn't complained about something or the other yet. Erin glanced over her shoulder at Eugene who was dressed in the riot gear that Glenn had given to him. Abraham had suggested that it was the wisest move to keep Eugene protected, and Glenn hadn't gone against it. Erin was surprised that he was even following all of this scientist crap. Tara was walking a bit behind them, and Abraham and Rosita were having a hushed conversation a little way away from that.

"You must really love her." Erin spoke up, hauling her backpack up higher on her back as she analysed the surrounding treeline. "It's nice to know that some relationships actually survived all of this."

She did wonder what it would be like to have someone there to continuously love and look out for her and find her no matter what. That person had been Max for her, but it felt like she hadn't seen him in a long time. Erin hadn't had a serious relationship before this went down. She'd only been in one long-term relationship, and it had ended poorly for her. She tried not to dwell on the past now. It wasn't part of this world anymore and she could pretend it never happened. But, she witnessed the love that Glenn had for Maggie, and realised that there was such a thing as undying love. It was evident. She'd thought love couldn't possibly exist at a time like this, but she could see it with Abraham and Rosita, and Glenn and Maggie.

"We didn't know each other before this." Glenn admitted, surprised he was opening up to Erin about this. "My group stayed with her and her family on their farm for a while. That's where we met. Had never even crossed each other in our previous lives."

"No shit."

Glenn couldn't help but smile to himself when he thought back to meeting his wife. It really had been a whirlwind of emotions for the both of them. He glanced down at Erin and saw the contemplative smile on her face. He'd never really asked her about her own life. He knew a few snippets from conversations he'd picked up on her having with Abraham, but she didn't delve into her past much. She seemed to accept that her survival group was as good as she was getting for a family.

"So, go on," She prompted. "tell me how the two of you crossed paths."

"My group... We used to be up by this rock quarry just outside of Atlanta. We got overrun and headed to the highway. Plan was to just keep moving until we came across somewhere safe to occupy, but that didn't happen. A herd of Walkers came along and one of the group ran... A little girl. One of our guys, Daryl, spent ages looking for. We, uh, stayed on the farm while all of us looked. I went on a run with Maggie and that's how I got to know her."

"Wow. That's amazing, Glenn. I'm sure we'll find her. And the rest of your group for that matter, too."

The Asian man nodded. He was hopeful too. Maggie had been leaving all of these signs out for him, knowing that he would see them, so he knew there was a strong chance that they were just days away from seeing one another. In fact, he thought it might even be closer. He could sense that Terminus was becoming closer as the signs started to become more and more frequent as they travelled along. He wondered if all of his group had made their way here. Rick, Carl, Daryl, Michonne, Carol, Tyreese, Sasha, Bob, Beth... Maggie... There was just so many of them that he prayed had continued walking down the same path that he walked now.

"Tell me," Erin spoke up again. "Did this Daryl guy find that little girl?"

"Oh..." Glenn sighed. "No. No, he didn't. This world has to get the best of some of us."

Glenn noticed Erin's eyes glaze over ever so slightly but he didn't say anything. He knew that look all too well and knew not to dwell on it. They'd all lost someone. Erin looked out to the horizon and squinted at the setting sun, the firey orange skies reflecting in her grey eyes. It was close. She hoped that Terminus was going to be a place where they could kick their feet up and take a moment to rest. Something in her mind told her that it wouldn't be. After all, Terminus did sound an awful lot like terminate. There weren't many coincidences anymore, but she prayed that this was one of them. She thought back to Glenn's short story of Daryl and the little girl. She'd never met Daryl before, never heard his name till now, and had no idea what he even looked like despite anything else. Yet, for some reason, her heart stretched out to this stranger. The poor man had searched just to come back empty handed. She couldn't imagine how he must have felt over that. She hoped he didn't blame himself for whatever it was that happened to that little girl.

The group of six continued to troop on as night began to fall. Eventually, they reached a tunnel. Erin narrowed her eyes as she looked around the area. There hadn't been that many Walkers to kill here, which meant somebody else had already done it before them. So, either Maggie had been the one to get rid of them, or there was someone else going in the same direction. Abraham paused beside her with his hands on his hips, staring at the mouth of the long, dark tunnel. He did not look impressed.

"We sure as hell can't go up and over," He said as he looked at the height of the mound before them.

"What about around?" Rosita suggested.

"No," Glenn said. "That'll take a day, maybe more. If Maggie went through, I'm going through."

Abraham grunted and glanced over at Eugene. Erin knew what he was thinking. There was no way that they could keep their eyes on Eugene and protect him without fail in a long, dark tunnel. She chewed her lower lip anxiously as she stepped tentatively towards the edge of the tunnel, peering into the darkness. She heard a few snarls from Walkers coming from within. She didn't like their chances.

"How do you know Maggie went through?" She turned to look at Glenn with a genuine expression.

"I just know she would have," He said.

"You hear that?" Abraham referred to the snarls of the animated corpses as he stepped closer to Erin, tugging her back to the safety of the small gathered group. "That there is a long, dark tunnel full of reanimated corpses. I don't have a full-on certainty that I can get Eugene through there alive. My recommendation would be take the day, make the detour and play it safe. But I know you're not gonna do that. So this is where we've got to part ways. I'm sorry. You're on your own."

Erin knew that Abraham was right. They'd only joined Glenn and Tara because there hadn't been much of a choice for the four of them. There had been no promise that they were all going to continue their journey together. Chances were that they were going to go their separate ways sooner or later. Erin had been surprised they'd lasted this long together considering the original clash Abraham and Glenn had had. As much as Erin had sort of grown to like the company of Glenn and Tara, she knew that she would not betray Abraham and Rosita and even Eugene. She looked to her redheaded leader and tilted her head at his words. Their sole mission was to protect Eugene. Glenn's mission was to find Maggie. They had two very different routes they had to pursue.

Glenn looked slightly hesitant as he switched his glance between the tunnel and the longer route that Abraham was eyeing. But, his eyes softened slightly when he saw that Erin was giving him an encouraging smile. She was telling him that she would take the tunnel too. She knew that that was his best hope for reuniting with Maggie. There was a brief exchange of goodbyes between them all. Erin squeezed Tara's hand lightly and gave Glenn a gracious smile, wishing him luck on finding his wife.

"Sorry, I... hit you in the face." Glenn sheepishly looked at the bulky Abraham.

"I'm not. I like to fight."

The group all cracked a smile at his sincere words. Erin knew that Abraham had never held that first hit against Glenn. In fact, he had kind of admired the smaller man for taking that punch. Even Erin had been slightly in awe of his bravery to take a swing at Abraham. Erin fell back into line with Abraham, Rosita and Eugene, looking at the other two survivors one last time.

"I have to say that you are seriously hot, Tara," Eugene said in his usual voice.

"Yeah, I like girls," Tara rolled her eyes a little and Erin and Rosita smirked.

"I'm well aware of that."

"Say you get into trouble in there." Abraham nodded his head at the looming tunnel. "You turn around. We're doubling back to the first road we crossed. Maybe you'll find us before we find the right ride."

"Thanks," Glenn said genuinely.

"Hey. I know what you're going through. After this all started, after I realised I'd never see my family, my friends again, I was numb. All day long, just numb. I'm just saying I get it."

With that, the two separated groups went their separate ways finally. A silence fell over the original group of four as they watched Glenn and Tara depart into the darkness of the tunnel before turning on their heels and heading back the way that they came. Something didn't sit right in Erin's stomach. It felt wrong to be leaving them to their own devices, even if they had helped them. She shrugged it off, blamed it on getting attached too quick. She barely knew the two of them yet. Not really. There was no reason for her not to push them to the back of her mind and not think about them again.

Their departure was clearly taking a toll on everyone. Even Abraham wasn't cracking his usual jokes. Eventually they came across a van on the deserted roads which they siphoned fuel into. Abraham watched as Erin chucked all of their bags into the back of the van, wiping the back of her hand across the light sheen of sweat residing on her forehead. He paused next to her as she shut the back door to the vehicle they had claimed for their own.

"Once we get Eugene to Washington, it'll be fine," He said.

"Washington?" Erin shook her head with a sigh. "Even if Washington has open arms for Eugene, what really makes you think we're going to make it that far? That's a long way to go, keeping someone protected 24/7. It's exhausting. You're gonna have to call all of this quits one day, Abe. I don't want to be the one to make you, so I'm just gonna follow your lead until you say stop."

Abraham pursed his lips together in thought as he watched the young woman he had travelled with these past few weeks hop up into the drivers seat and slam the door shut behind her. He knew she was right, deep down. He wasn't going to admit it, but he knew it better than even she did. His eyes flickered over to Euegne who occupied the passenger seat. Washington better be good.

*

Eugene's eyes scanned the map on his lap that he had found in the glove box as he called out directions to Erin. She turned the wheel in her hands, feeling the vibrations in the gear stick as they pulled onto off road, the wheels churning over wood and rocks and mud. Her eyes narrowed at the area that seemed to be growing familiar. Hadn't they already walked down this way, earlier that day? Apparently Abraham was getting the same idea as she was. He was glaring around at the scenery out of the window as Rosita muttered something beside him. Still, Eugene continued to call out directions. Who was Erin to argue? She wasn't the one with the map.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Abraham snapped as the van started to pull past the tunnel that they had left Glenn and Tara in hours ago.

Erin smiled a little to herself. Eugene wanted to go back and find them, safe and sound. She'd never taken the time to warm to the 'doctor', but she felt a surge of gratitude as she glanced over at him now. He knew what he was doing the whole time he was navigating. It was brave for him to go against Abe's orders. And to go against his own safety as well. Erin continued driving until they reached the end of the tunnel which seemed to stretch on forever. The end was just as dark and bleak as the beginning had been. It was concerning to think of what was lurking inside those walls.

"If Glenn and Tara were still alive and there were no significant delays and they continued travelling at approximately three miles per hour and I timed it correctly in my head, they might be somewhere around here," Eugene announced.

"Those two are not the priority," Abraham leant forward in his seat. "The only priority is getting you to Washington."

Erin glanced in the rearview mirror at an angry faced Abraham. Even Rosita looked reluctant to agree with his words. She knew that what Eugene was saying and what Erin was thinking was right. The three of them couldn't leave Glenn and Tara behind to their possible deaths. Even Abraham was thinking it deep down.

"After I save the world, I still have to live with myself," Eugene said. "I'm not leaving them behind."

Eugene nodded at Erin and she eased her foot over the brakes, bringing the van to a rolling stop. Abraham slammed his fist on the back of her seat.

"Son of a bitch! Why the hell have we stopped?"

"If they made it out of that tunnel, they'd be somewhere around here," Eugene nodded at the road ahead a few minutes drive away from the tunnel, where they in fact could not see Glenn and Tara anywhere; something must have happened. This was the first time where Erin actually found herself trusting the words of Eugene.

"You're kidding me, right?" Abraham yelled. "What's your problem?"

"What do you mean, what's my problem?" Erin snapped her head round to stare at the man as he spoke down to her.

"You're the one who put your damn foot on the brake! You don't stop! You never stop!"

"Oh, shut up with your stupid rules. Are you really going to let two innocent people die just because of your self pride and ego?"

"You take your foot off that brake now, Erin."

The two of them entered an intense staring match, both with steam coming out of their ears. Erin normally managed to keep her temper at bay and would remain relatively calm in dire situations, but Abraham was infuriating her now more than he ever had. If he said one more word, she would get out of this van and she would walk straight into that tunnel and not look back.

"We can't just sit here and not do anything!" Rosita interrupted their childish bickering.

"You're right," Erin nodded.

Abraham looked almost relieved and was about to say that he was glad the young woman had finally seen where she was going wrong in all of this. But, he didn't expect her to spin the wheel of the van violently in her hands and press down on the accelerator, taking off at full speed towards the entrance of the tunnel. He groaned loudly and reached into the one of the bags for his gun. Erin flicked on the headlights and eased her reckless driving, straining her eyes to see if she could spot Glenn and Tara anywhere in the tunnel. There were a few Walkers stumbling about. More of the seemed to cluster together the further she advanced into the tunnel. All of them kept an eye out of the windows of the van, but it was too shadowy for them to clearly see anything.

"Wait!" Rosita said. "Wait, look. There. Up ahead, through all the Walkers."

Erin squinted through the large group of Walkers to see Glenn and a few others up on a platform in the tunnel. She slammer her foot on the brake and the van came to an abrupt halt. She almost smiled when she thought about what her brother would have said if he had been in the passenger seat with her driving like that. He'd never really approved of her driving. She revved the engine as Abraham swung open the door of the van, stepping out and opening fire on the herd of Walkers. The survivors ducked down as he took out the threat that was trapping them. Finally, the Walkers were all down. Erin heaved a sigh of relief, slumping into her seat. Real panic had risen in her throat then. She reached out and clapped Eugene on the shoulder.

"Good job, doc."

Abraham gathered up the five people in the tunnel and hustled them all into the van. Erin turned in her seat to take in the new faces that had joined Glenn and Tara. A beautiful woman with dark hair who she instantly guessed was Maggie, Glenn's wife. It wasn't hard to tell by the way they were desperately clutching onto one another. They were joined by a dark skinned woman and man. They must have been members of Glenn's group as well. Glenn made a round of introductions amongst the nine of them crammed into the van, and Erin discovered that they were Sasha and Bob, and that they were indeed part of the survival group. Abraham motioned for Erin to take off out of the tunnel. She somehow managed to turn the van round and they were soon rolling out into the open air. She felt so much better now that she could see the sky above them.

"I'm downright tickled y'all found each other," Abraham broke up the reunion in the back. "Should spend the rest of the night celebrating. Because tomorrow there's absolutely no reason why the nine of us don't head on up to Washington."

"He's right," Tara said. "I'm gonna go."

There was disagreement from Glenn. Erin trained her eyes on him as he was quick to shake his head. She didn't think Washington was a good idea either, but she didn't know why he was so adamant on disagreeing with going there. He didn't even know what was at stake. Didn't he want to test the possibility that there was a cure? That this could all be over? Erin knew that she wanted nothing more than to be able to cross the state border and have somebody tell her that this was all a nightmare that they could be woken up from. Not a nightmare that they had to keep tossing and turning over.

"We're a day's walk from Terminus," Glenn shrugged. "Who knows what they've got there?"

"We might as well check," Erin shrugged from up front.

"Yeah, doesn't hurt to try," Rosita agreed.

My brother could be there." Sasha said. "I've got to know."

"I... Tomorrow we go to the end of the line. Then Washington."

A small cheer erupted in the van and Erin couldn't stop the grin that stretched across her face. Even Abraham smiled a little after his words. There was a chance of safety, at least for a while. With that thought in mind, Erin knew that she was going to have a sleep without nightmares tonight. When they set up camp, the nine of them, and settled down to sleep, she was surprised to find that just before shutting her eyes, her thoughts drifted to the stranger Daryl and that little girl that Glenn had told her about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I'm looking to introduce Daryl (in person) come the next couple of chapters.  
> I won't give anything away for any of you who haven't watched the Season 7 premiere yet, but I have to say... I'm pretty torn up over that. But, brilliant acting as always, despite how awful and sad it was to watch.  
> Thanks for reading!


	5. Fresh Meat

'T E R M I N U S' was spelt across the windows in a sloppy white paint job. Erin craned her neck back as she stared up at the harsh words that stood out against the skyline. Her accumulated group of nine had all taken similar stances, staring at the wall of Terminus and the large building that supposedly housed all the survivors here. It seemed almost too good to be true. Erin was sat on the fence. She knew that she couldn't dive into anything head on, but she knew that she had to be trustworthy enough to allow chances of bettering her survival. Beside her, Maggie shot her a reassuring glance. They were all going to go through this together. Their newfound group would walk through those gates together and they would all be okay. Erin felt safe surrounded by these people. Her hand itched to rest on the gun in the holster on her leg, but she knew that would give the guards watching them a threat to perceive. She wasn't a threat. She couldn't have anyone thinking she was a threat.

"This is good," Abraham muttered as he walked beside her. "This is fine. This is okay. We wait here for a while, see if we find the rest of their group, see if any show up... Then we pitch the idea for D.C. and we get the Hell out of here and back on the road."

"Sounds like a plan and a half," Erin nodded.

She was getting a queasy feeling in her stomach as they approached the gates to Terminus. Somehow, she had not expected this. Even when seeing all the signs directing their way, she hadn't thought they'd be faced with something so leering. It didn't look like a happy place. Guards opened the gates and allowed them in as the large group approached. They paused upon entry. Erin scanned the compound. It reminded her of a pen. Somewhere to just chuck animals in and keep them all together. But, to be protected, there had to be walls. She glanced over at a market set up in the corner. An older woman was folding clothes on a table. She barely glanced up at them, simply continuing her work. 

"Do you think it's meant to be this inviting?" Erin couldn't keep the underlying sarcasm from her tone.

Abraham snorted in appreciation at her comment and she just gave a short smile. A handsome man with dark hair was approaching. He looked about the same age as her, perhaps younger. He had a warm smile plastered onto his narrow face and his hands were held up in a way of greeting. The group shared a few glances with one another. The welcoming committee was sparse. Just a few people staring at them. Erin chewed on a loose hangnail as the man came to a stop before them. His eyes glittered with something that they didn't know. A joke, or a story. A punchline. Something mysterious that Erin wanted to know, but at the same time, knew that she shouldn't.

"Welcome to Terminus," He greeted them.

"Clearly your posters ain't doing you much good," Abraham looked around the place. "Your survivor count is a bit less than we thought it would be."

The man gave a short chuckle. Erin couldn't tell whether it was an annoyed laugh or something more genuine and honest. She doubted it was honest. Abraham stood with his chest puffed out as he analysed the man before them. He was scrawny, and Erin knew that Abe would be able to take him down in just one hit. But, this man did have guards with guns, and although there weren't many, Erin wasn't betting that her trigger finger would be as quick as theirs had probably been trained to be.

"It's a desolate traintrack." The man shrugged. "I'm surprised such a large number of you stumbled across it at once. Were you all together or did you meet on your travels?"

"Not really any of your business," Abraham tilted his head to one side, regarding the dark haired man.

"Perhaps not. I'm Gareth, by the way. It's a pleasure to see so many survivors here in front of me at once. Please, take my warm welcome to my home. Our home."

Erin glanced around again. It didn't look that bad, despite nobody around her really having much of a smile on their face. Gareth's eye caught hers and he gave her an almost wistful smile. It was eerie. She looked away quickly. Something about his gaze made her feel dirty and uncomfortable. Gareth was telling them a bit about the workings of Terminus. She wasn't listening. It wasn't that she wasn't interested. It was just that she was focused back on the woman who had been folding clothes. She had moved to another wooden table and was chopping at slabs of meat, making a stew out of it. She'd not eaten well in days, weeks. Months, maybe. It was only a bit of scrap here and there. She'd not had hot food in a long time. It made her mouth water slightly thinking about it. The last time she had devoured any sort of meat had been from the carcass of a rabbit. It had filled a hole. But, that stew looked like it would fill a bigger hole.

"Hungry?" A silky voice interrupted her thoughts.

She met Gareth's eyes again. He stood directly in front of her. If it had not been a world where she couldn't trust anyone upon first stumbling across them, she might have given him a second glance. Perhaps if they'd been in a bar, and he had offered to buy her a drink, she would have coyly smiled and accepted. Maybe if he'd offered her to join him at his, she wouldn't have declined. But something said in the back of her mind that if he offered her anything now, she would not hesitate to say no. Her eyes flickered to the rest of the group, all intently watching her. 

"Just trying to think of the last time I had a good, hot meal," Erin lifted a shoulder in a shrug before letting it drop heavily.

"Please," Gareth grinned around at them. "you're my guests. How rude it is of me not to offer you food straight away. This fine woman over here is Mary. Maybe, while you mull over your decision whether to stay here or not, you can join us for dinner. Mary makes a kickass meat stew, I've gotta admit. I'm sure we can spare for nine more."

Mary, who did not look like she wanted to spare for nine more, gave a grimace of a smile. Gareth clapped his hands and rubbed them together as he grinned again. He looked truly joyed to have them all lined up in front of them. It must have been a long time since he'd had new survivors join Terminus. Fresh meat always made for a bit more fun. 

Gareth asked them if they would be so kind as to hand over their weapons before stepping further into the camp. Erin reluctantly removed her gun from its holster, laying it on the table with the rest of her groups extensive collection of weapons. She considered leaving her hunting knife tucked away safely in her bag, but she knew it would be a bad idea if she got caught out. Besides. If they extended a hand to trust her, then why shouldn't she meet them halfway and trust them? Without any weapons to her name, she stepped further into Terminus, feeling next to naked. It had been a long time since she had been without something to defend herself. She became more alert as she looked around the camp. Her eyes rested on a couple of train cars over by the fencing. What had this place been before? A factory of some kind, maybe. Gareth was leading them over to a collection of wooden dining tables. Reluctantly, she swung her leg over the bench and seated herself on the hard wood. The rest of the group were all doing the same. Mary was dishing up bowls of her apparently infamous meat stew in the corner of her vision.

Her eyes were focused on Mary and her serving ladle when a swift hit to the back of her head made her vision turn to black.

*

Erin stirred awake and was greeted instantly by darkness. She groaned and clamped a hand to the back of her head where she felt the dried crusting of blood on the back of her matted hair. Her vision blurred as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. What had happened? All she remembered was seeing Mary before all of a sudden a sharp sensation of pain had lapsed her into darkness. She'd not felt blunt pain like that in a while.

"Erin? Oh, thank God." She heard Rosita's voice.

It took her a while to become adjusted to the darkness. Finally, she could make out the people around her. Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Glenn, Tara, Maggie, Sasha and Bob. All of them sat in similar positions to her own. She glanced up at the metal ceiling above them and then over at the bolted door. It was a small rectangular room, not really big enough for all nine of them to sit in without becoming too close. There was barely enough air getting around.

"What happened?" Erin asked, crawling across the small space between her and Rosita.

"Gareth," Glenn snapped. "knocked everyone out. I didn't see it coming. I was out before I even knew it. Now we're locked in here."

"Here? Where's here?"

"We think it was one of those train cars," Sasha explained. "Boxcar A. Says it on the wall."

Everyone looked scared. Erin sat back on her heels. She was yet to face a situation like this. She knew that Walkers weren't the only problem and was well aware that humans could cause as much grief in their changed mindsets. But, she'd never stumbled across a group like this yet. Yes, she'd met some violent and aggressive people, bad people. People that she didn't want to cross in this lifetime or the next. However, nobody like Gareth. Nobody had ever snuck up behind her and physically harmed her. They'd only ever tried to harm her when she had been equally armed and ready for a fair fight. She'd not killed a human yet. Maybe she would have to today.

"We gotta get out of here," Abraham grumbled, smacking his fist on the hard door.

He cursed and drew his hand back. It looked like the only way they were getting out was if somebody let them out. Erin let out a breath that she hadn't known she'd been holding and placed her head in her hands. They had no weapons. Everything had been taken from them. This was a planned attack. But for what? Terminus was meant to be a survival camp. A place survivors could go to for safety. Not to meet their death. Surely Gareth wanted them for no other reason than to kill them. It could be to use them as Walker bait, or as bargaining chips for something or the other. Or, he could simply be a sadistic fuck. There were a few of those about.

"Come on, people, we have to do something."

Despair was on the face of everyone. Glenn and Maggie were holding each other close. They'd only just been reunited and were already being dragged apart. Eugene was a shaking mess. Sasha, Bob, Tara and Rosita simply looked exhausted. Erin didn't blame them. She felt it. Her head wound had created a pulsing headache for her and every now and then, black dots swam into her vision, darkening the dim room even more than it already was. Abraham was the only one on his feet, crashing about as if he could do anything. Erin wasn't a quitter and she didn't like to give up, but sometimes? Were you faced with any other option? 

"Abe, come on," She patted the space beside her. "sit with me. That door is going to have to open at some point. And when it does, we'll have some sort of plan that's gonna help us get out of here, okay? We just need to put our heads together and come up with something. All of us can think of something."

Abraham sunk down the wall beside Erin and Rosita curled up into his side. Erin ran a hand over her tired face. She was a well of reassuring words when she needed to be, but she wasn't quite sure that she could live up to what she was saying. Her eyes met Glenn's and he gave her a shrug that said that he didn't know what to do. Glenn had a lot more experience with this sort of thing than she did, so if he didn't know what to do? He definitely didn't know what to do. If Max had been here, he would have had an idea. He would have come up with something so genius that they would have all applauded him as he bowed. But, Max wasn't here. Erin would have loved to carry on her brother's legacy of extraordinary plans and ideas, but she couldn't. She just couldn't. She didn't even know where to start. Max would have never wound up in a train car in the middle of nowhere in the first place. She knew that she should have trusted her gut instinct.

Her eyes opened as she heard the sound of gunshots being fired outside. Were there other people being killed? Were they next for the slaughterhouse? She fretted away at her chapped lips. One of the bullets hit the metal of the train car and reverberated off of it, the noise causing all of them to jump and cringe away. Erin had never felt so unsafe. She'd come to a few close death scenarios, but even then she'd felt more hope than she did now. The noises outside were growing more concerning with every passing minute. That door would swing wide open and they wouldn't have a plan. They'd be screwed.

And the door did open with a creak. Abraham and Glenn scrambled to their feet while others pushed themselves closer up against the cold metal of the wall behind them. A shocking ray of light shone in, blinding them. Erin squinted as she heard footsteps on the metal. She didn't dare look. For all she knew, Gareth was stood there with a machine gun, waiting to blow all of their heads off, one by one. She wouldn't be able to watch her friends die. Her eyes remained shut at the echoing of footsteps and stayed that way until at last, somebody spoke.

"Rick?"

Glenn's voice cut through. Erin looked up as the door slammed shut again. There were four shadowed figures now standing in the train car with them. A man with a dishevelled beard and a wide eyed stare, a young boy with a Sheriff's hat propped upon his head, a black woman with dreads swinging about her face and another man in a leather vest with longer, messier hair. There was a shock pause of realisation. Erin understood that these must have been Glenn's other group members. The man with the beard gaped around at the people in the train car before him, his eyes sparking with recognition. Erin hid her face slightly as his eyes passed over her. The other man was staring at her, Abraham Rosita and Eugene. She understood that it must have looked out of place, four strangers propped in the middle of their once whole group. The guy in the leather vest was staring her down with a menacing look. She gulped and forced herself to keep her head held high, but her eyes lowered to the ground. These strangers didn't have to see how scared she was. She didn't want them to think that she was weak. That would be a bad first impression, and luckily it was not the first impression she had given to the other members of their group.

"They helped us," Glenn explained, motioning to the strangers Rick was presented with. "Tara helped me escape from the prison, and these four... Abraham, Erin, Rosita and Eugene. They helped us. They saved us. All of us."

Rick just gave a stern nod in the direction of the newcomers. He respected that they'd had the courage to save his group without knowing them. He couldn't fault the strangers for that. Erin looked over pointedly at Glenn.

"Guys, these are other members of my group." Glenn introduced them, as if they weren't in a life threatening situation. "Rick, Carl, Michonne and Daryl."

Daryl. The name rang a bell. Daryl was the man in Glenn's story who hadn't been able to save the little girl. The man who Erin had fell asleep one night thinking about, even though she didn't know him. Now she could put a face to the name. She reluctantly glanced up to meet Daryl's full glare. Stubble rested on his jaw and his hair was slick and greasy with the months he had not had access to any means of hygiene. His eyes were tired and he looked as if he'd been up for days. Erin's eyes flitted to is bare arms. Strong muscles rippled beneath the skin surface. His hands were clenched into fists. She wasn't surprised. He was very clearly a fighter. For some reason, she couldn't imagine him as the type to go traipsing off in the woods looking for lost little girls to bring them back home to their mothers. Yet, something about that imagine in her mind clicked in all the right ways. He was staring back at her just as intently. A blush lit up her cheeks and she glanced away, over to where Rick was pacing.

"They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out," He announced.

"Find out what?" Abraham asked.

"They're screwing with the wrong people."


	6. No Sanctuary

Daryl was unsure of the new members that had joined his once whole group. It was his job to make sure no funny business went on, and he didn't want to risk it with these people any more than he had others, even if they had helped to save Glenn and the others. His family. The bulky one with the shock of red hair looked like he would pack a hard punch. Abraham. Daryl knew that he wasn't going to square up against him. He might have been strong himself, but he doubted that he would last longer than a couple of minutes in a ring with the ex-military man. The other man was more of a mess. Daryl's nose scrunched up at the sight of his mullet. He wasn't sure that that was even acceptable now, let alone in a different lifetime. This one, Eugene, looked like he would cringe away from a loud bang. Daryl smirked a little as he eyed the podgy man up and down. Eugene broke out in a slight sweat, dragging his eyes away from the redneck. That was a battle he wasn't willing to fight.

Finally, Daryl looked at the two women. Both dark haired and of slim build. He might have thought they were sisters, if it weren't for the difference in their skin tone. The darker woman was hanging off of Abraham, so Daryl knew that was made pretty clear from the start. The other one seemed more reserved. Erin, he remembered her name being said in the midst of everything that was happening in the chaos. Erin. Her grey eyes were a storm of emotions as his eyes raked over her curiously. Her lips were pursed together and her dark hair hung in messy tendrils from what had once been a high ponytail, but was now hanging limply on the back of her head. He noticed that her fingers were stained with dry blood. Almost instantly, he was on red alert. He crossed the short space between them in the box car and seized her by the collar of her jacket, yanking her up to her feet. She let out a yelp of surprise and Abraham was quick to react, going to swat the brute of a man off of his travelling partner. Daryl pushed him back.

"She's covered in blood." He snapped. "You bit or somethin', girl?"

Erin looked surprised. Her eyes were wide as saucers as she stared at the grizzly bear of a man dangling her mid-air in the darkness. The toes of her boots barely scraped along the floor of the train car that they were in as his fist enclosed around the denim of her coat. She would have been scared, but right now? Daryl was the least of her problems. What Glenn had said about him committing his days to saving a little girl seemed less likely with every move he made and every word he spoke.

"Calm down, Daryl," Rick warned his right hand man. "Let's not jump to any conclusions. She doesn't look... infected."

"I'm not." Erin snapped back in a tone that rivalled Daryl's own. The man looked surprised and loosened his grip on her jacket, setting her roughly on her feet again. "I was hit round the back of the head. Open head wound. Check me over if you want, but I can assure you that that's the only source of bleeding you're going to find on me."

Daryl looked less than convinced. He grumbled something under his breath and turned on his heel to face the rest of the group. Abraham shot a deadly glare at the back of his head. Erin reached out and placed a hand on her friends forearm too calm him. As much as Daryl's abrupt and brash manner had irritated her too, she couldn't blame him entirely for it. She'd said it once before and she was sure she would say it many times again - if she lived. You couldn't trust anybody.

Rick's group got to catching up with one another. Sasha's brother, Tyreese, had not been seen by any of the others yet and Maggie's sister, Beth, had been taken away by some group. Daryl had been trying to track them down but had so far been unlucky. Erin was baffled at the apparent size of their group. Glenn had mentioned once that the prison had been brimming with people, but she hadn't expected it to be as many as they were referring to. They were constantly name dropping new and unheard of names and the list continued to grow as their voices grew hoarse from the whispered chatter. Nobody was quite ready to bring up the elephant in the room. Or, perhaps, the elephant outside of the train car.

As the minutes ticked by, Erin sat pressed up against the wall with her knees drawn to her chest, picking away at the dried blood that caked her palms and fingers. She was used to the dirt and grime and certainly no stranger to being faced with blood nowadays, but she still cringed at the sight of it. It was even worse knowing that it was her own blood. From a head wound, too. She may have only attended basic first aid courses, but she knew enough to know that any wound to the head could be severely dangerous. In any other situation, she would have hurried herself down to the nearest hospital. But, she wasn't sure that any ER was going to be up open and running for her now. It was a good sign, at least, that she didn't feel dizzy or nauseated. If it reached that point, then she would have to worry about her wellbeing.

"It's not gonna just come off unless you use water," A gruff voice almost reprimanded her.

Erin raised an eyebrow as Daryl spoke. His Southern voice was thick and his long, tangled hair seemed untameable. Much like him, no doubt. He didn't look at her as he spoke. She couldn't even be sure if he was speaking to her at all, but she knew that she was the only one who had traces of blood all over her skin. Something in her wanted to snap at Daryl and tell him that she didn't need his advice and she could handle herself, thank you very much. She held back, though. That would only create tension in the group. That was the last thing they needed right now. So, instead, she just shrugged and continued picking at the blood with her bitten nails.

Silence filtered over the group in the train car. They were all absorbed in their own thoughts. Thoughts of their safety, their relationships, their next move. There weren't really any viable next moves. They simply couldn't be one step ahead in this scenario. Erin knew that Abraham was practically pulling his hair out at that idea. He was always so prepared and so ready for everything, and now he couldn't be. A blindfold had been placed on him. Erin imagined that Rick and Daryl were very similar to her own leader. 

"We have to do something," Maggie said. 

"We're not going to go down without a fight," Michonne agreed.

There seemed like there wasn't much of a fight to be had. Erin knew that they just had to play a painfully long waiting game now. Gareth had taken away Glenn's watch from him when he had been knocked out and now none of them had any way of telling the time or how long they'd been here. Erin guessed that they were close to nearing the twenty four hour mark. She glanced over at Rick, who was fidgeting about with something in his hands. Her head tilted to one side as she watched his fingers create something. A wooden shiv. A couple of the others had taken to trying to source things that they could make weapons out of. The material of their clothes, any of the materials from within the train car. Erin turned a loose screw over between her own nimble fingers. She had no intention of harming anyone to the point of death, but this would do in a struggle to get out of here. 

"Someone quick needs to be stationed at that door." Abraham was saying. "Somebody who can make a move the second that they have a gap. I recommend our girl, Erin."

Erin was surprised at Abraham's words. She knew that he knew she was perfectly capable of handling herself and protecting Eugene when it was needed, but she didn't know that he actually thought she was skilled in any way. He was right. Erin was fast. She could often outrun a threat. She was small and light on her feet and it meant she could move quicker. Her size also came in pretty handy when it came down to getting through some tricky spots.

"I don't know," Rick's voice was weary. "Glenn's quick. He knows his way around a gun if he manages to get his hands on one. I'd take a guess that he was our best bet."

"But who do you think they're going to expect? One of the men, or one of the fragile women who shouldn't even know how to hold a gun?"

Michonne shot Abraham an almost offended look at the terms 'fragile' and 'women' thrown together.

"Not you," Abraham amended. "You don't look fragile. At all."

Rick was considering Abraham's suggestion. His eyes glanced over to Erin. She was small enough that one tackle would surely take her down without any effort from her attacker. But, Rick had known some strong females during these times, and he wouldn't put it past her to be perfectly capable of getting in and out when she needed to.

"You okay doing that?" He asked the younger woman.

"If I can help out, sure." Erin nodded slowly. "I can't promise that I'll get anywhere, though. Just because I'm fast, doesn't mean I'm a miracle worker."

Daryl scoffed loudly at her words. Erin shot him a look that was less than gracious. She knew what it was like to not want to open up to new people and she knew exactly how it felt to be cooped up in your own body with feelings of distrust. But, she tended not to obviously show it to everyone around her. Daryl was apparently not as discreet as she. He was making it damn clear that he didn't trust Erin as far as he could throw her. That made a sour taste fill Erin's mouth. She was not a bitter person, but she couldn't help but feel a small surge of anger and frustration. She was a good person and she deserved to be treated like one. Bad people were people like Gareth and she was nothing like him.

But, the plan never had a chance to go through. Erin didn't have a chance to prove Daryl wrong. Because suddenly, with no warning, the door to the train car was yanked open and a cannister of tear gas was thrown in, throwing them all off guard. Erin felt wheezy coughs force themselves from her longs as she squinted through the billowing clouds of the gas. If the box car was dark before, it was nothing compared to now. She could see a hint of light streaming in from where the door was open. If she could move quick enough, she would be able to get out. Surely everyone would have had the same idea. As she staggered to her feet, though, the door slammed shut. Coughs and splutters surrounded her, breaking the silence. It took a few minutes for the air to clear. That's when the remaining members of the group realised that Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Bob were gone.

*

An explosion. Erin winced at how close the noise sounded. What was happening out there? The remaining members in the box car had heard nothing but hectic commotion since the four men had been dragged away. Erin hoped they were alright. She didn't really know any of them all that well, but she didn't want any of them to meet their end. Not here, not today, not at the hands of these sick people. Not even Daryl. Even if they had seemingly got off on the wrong foot, she wouldn't be willing to risk his life. 

"That's gunfire," Maggie whispered. "gunfire. What if they've been shot? What if they're...?"

"Don't," Sasha reached out and squeezed her hand in an iron grip.

Everyone looked worried. A few of the shots had ricocheted off of the metal surface of the box car. A few dents had been made. Every time the group heard a threatening noise, all of their heads bowed into a duck and they curled in on themselves. Surely this would not be the way for them to go. There were living corpses roaming the streets, and they were to meet their maker from a haphazardly fired gunshot? Erin wasn't sure that was a fair way to play the game.

"Sounds like a damned heated showdown out there," Abraham muttered.

"We might be able to compromise the door somehow," Michonne said as she ran her slender hand over the door of the train car.

"From the sound of things, there may not be anybody left to open it," Eugene replied in a dully blunt voice.

"Eugene, I'm sorry, but shut up," Tara snapped at him. He also received one hell of a glare from Rosita.

Erin stumbled to her feet and joined Michonne. There had to be a way for them to get out. What if everybody out there really was in trouble? What if even the bad guys went down? They'd be trapped in here forever, and that just wasn't an option. 

"My dad's gonna be back." Carl spoke up confidently. "They all are. And we need to get ready to fight our way out with them when they do."

"Hope you're right, kid," Erin murmured.

As they all waited, tense shoulders and clenched fists, the others questioned Eugene on the cure he had told them about earlier. Erin was barely listening to his words. She caught the drift of it being classified information that would die with Eugene. That was why Abraham was no hellbent on protecting the weak man. Erin had come close to giving her life for Eugene these past couple of months to protect him as they travelled together. She had thrown herself in the way of danger under Abraham's orders just to keep him from getting so much as a scratch. Even she was starting to hope that this cure was real now.

"I was part of a ten person team at the Human Genome Project," Eugene was telling them. "to weaponise diseases to fight weaponised diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms with pathogenic microorganisms. Fire with fire."

A banging sounded on the door. Erin whipped her head round, worried that another round of tear gas would find its way inside their four by four walls. They all stood, waiting for the worst to come through that door as something repetitively slammed against it. In a blast of sudden motion, it almost swung off its hinges, and Rick was standing there before them, an almost deranged expression on his face as he held a gun tightly in his grip. What had the four men been through?

"Fight to the fence!"

It didn't take much for the others to all make a move. Erin hurried down the steps out of the box car and gratefully seized one of the guns that Bob was holding out to her. It was not her own gun, but she was pretty sure a gun was a gun. There was no other way to use it and there was no other purpose it was needed for. It felt heavy in her hands, but she ignored it as she stared at the scene around them. Walkers were ambling through a breach in the fence that surrounded Terminus. A few dead men were spattered around on the floor. But, most of the men - still alive - were aiming their guns at the group with the intent of not letting them get out. 

Erin clicked the safety off of her gun as she hurried to move along with the group. Rick, Daryl and Abraham did most of the work, taking down anyone that blocked their path on the way to escaping out of the fence. Erin had been right about Terminus all along. It really was a place where life was terminated. Bullets were flying in every direction and Erin violently cursed as she heard one plant into the fence behind her. It was a close call. She'd already suffered one injury today and she wasn't willing to suffer another. Up ahead, Rick had reached the area in the fence that they were to all make their way through, back to safety on the other side, back to safety where there were no walls to protect them. Safety was ironic these days. Erin followed behind Daryl, keeping a close eye on his muscled arms and strong back. She focused on him, not wanting to lose him. 

Just as she was about to follow him through the fence, a figure appeared in front of her. She jumped and took a step back, along with Sasha and Bob who were still behind her. Her own group had already cleared the area, keeping as far up front to protect Eugene as best as they could. The man in front of them was covered in blood. He looked insane. Erin's eyes flickered from his dangerous face for one moment to look at the bite mark clamped deep in his arm. The Walkers were flowing in fast and steady. The surviving members of Terminus would have no choice but to leave, just like they were. Erin took a deep breath and lifted her gun to point it at the man. She'd never killed anyone who was living before. But, to protect herself and to protect the others in this group? She knew she'd just have to take the chance and dwell on it later.

However, she didn't need to shoot. Somebody else shot for her. The body dropped to the ground and the stranger was no longer preventing their escape. Daryl stood there with his crossbow raised. He quickly bent down and yanked the bolt from the head of the man he'd just killed. Erin slowly lowered her gun as she watched him.

"You alright?" He asked in that gruff voice she'd only heard a couple of times, but felt like she knew perfectly.

She couldn't muster up any words so she just nodded. Daryl returned the nod and then quickly jerked his head to the fence, instructing her, Sasha and Bob to go through so that he could bring up the rear of the group as they entered safety. The group moved deeper into the woods until they finally reached a clearing in the trees where, although they could hear gunshots still, they were safe away from the danger of them. Heavy pants surrounded them. An adrenaline rush surged through Erin's veins. They'd done it. All of them had made it out alive, no casualties. And for her to have no casualties? That was mainly down to Daryl. He'd saved her life without any obligation to it. He was probably just looking out for Sasha and Bob.

"The hell are we still around here for?" Abraham demanded when Rick made no move.

"Guns, some supplies," Rick nodded at a duffel bag at his feet. "Go along the fences. Use the rifles. Take out the rest of 'em. They don't get to live."

"Rick, we got out." Maggie frowned. "It's over."

"It's not over till they're all dead."

"The hell it isn't." Abraham spoke up. "That place is on fire. Full of Walkers. I'm not dicking around with this crap."

"The fences are down, Rick," Erin offered. "They'll have to leave, or they'll die. We don't need to do anything else. We're fine."

Both Rick and Daryl paused to look at the woman they'd only recently met. Erin was surprised that Daryl actually nodded at her words, making a brief sound of agreement. The group stood with their hands on their hips, looking back over through the treeline towards Terminus. Burning down. What a relief that was. The trees rustled and a woman emerged from them, covered in the staining of blood and smelling an awful lot like the Walkers they'd all just encountered on their detour out of there. Rick grinned when he saw the woman. Erin and Abraham shared a shrug of the shoulder as she hugged Daryl and Rick in turn.

"Did you do that?" Rick asked.

The woman laughed and nodded. She started to lead the group further into the woods. Erin found herself falling into step with Daryl who seemed insistent on constantly bringing up the back of the group. He glanced down at her with narrowed eyes as she kept her newfound gun in her hands, her eyes darting about their surroundings, alert and ready.

"Who is that woman?" She asked, surprising him as she spoke with a soft voice.

"Carol." He replied. "Member of our group. She set that damned place on fire."

"Hm. Without her, we'd still all be there... Without you, I'd still be there. Dead, probably. Thank you, Daryl. I know you don't trust me. I don't blame you. Heck, I think it's smart that you don't. But, thank you."

Daryl looked even more surprised at her genuine words. He just made another gruff noise that Erin simply smirked at, walking ahead of him and leaving him to stare after her in bemusement. He hadn't expected a thanks from her. He'd not exactly been pleasant to her from the second that they'd met. Shooting the man that was blocking her way had just been second nature to him. He would have done that for anyone... he was sure of it. Even a stranger, like her? He shook his thoughts off. It didn't matter now. It was done. She was alive, he was alive, they didn't need to dwell on it. He scoffed to himself. Women.

When Carol lead them to a cabin, Sasha was reunited with her brother Tyreese and Rick with his daughter, Judith. Only a baby. Erin's eyes lit up at that. That was the pure image of hope. As the group conversed and all introduced themselves to one another properly, Erin felt the most hope she had felt in months. She felt a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach. This was a survival group. This was a family. She felt like she could belong in this group, and she knew she would be happier for it.


	7. Strangers

They had to keep moving. No matter how tired they were, no matter how hot and bothered they were, they had to keep moving. Erin turned the gun in her hands again and again as they crunched their way through a layer of leaves in the woods that they immersed themselves in. She wondered who this gun had belonged to before her. How many Walkers it had shot... how many people it had shot. Now it was hers. The clip had been next to empty when she'd first gone to use it. She sighed and shoved it back in her leg holster. The area had been almost void of Walkers for the last couple of days now, so she hopefully wouldn't need to draw for a while yet. Besides, there was never any much chance to draw with this group. Rick and Daryl were usually first. They were quick and silent about it and their role as leaders was unquestioned. Abraham was also quick to make any moves on any advancing threats, as well as Michonne, who was a force of nature from what Erin had seen. Most of the prison group were. Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, Bob, Tyreese, Carol, Carl... All of them fought without hesitation. 

Erin dragged her hair up into a ponytail as she started to fall back in pace from the group. The sweltering heat was unbearable and sweat rolled down her forehead in the form of heavy bullets. She'd stripped off her jacket and overshirt and was now left in just a tank top. It still wasn't enough. Her jeans clung to her like a second skin and she could feel her feet swelling from the heat in her boots. She glanced over to Tyreese up ahead who was carrying baby Judith. How had the baby not complained once, yet Erin felt herself wanting to moan every other second? Just as she was considering stopping for a couple of minutes to have a sit down, a shadow cast across her vision and she glanced up to see the redneck standing in front of her, squinting through the sun with what she could only guess was a glare. In the last few days they had been travelling as a group, Erin had been watching Daryl Dixon. He was an interesting man.

"C'mon." He ordered in his usual gruff voice. "We ain't got all day. Your boy Abraham wants to keep heading North till we find some damn vehicle to get us to D.C. I suggest you keep up. Your group an' all."

"Just because it's my group doesn't mean I agree with it." Erin grumbled, brushing past him and pretending that he wasn't just a breath away with every step that she took.

"What, you don't wanna go to D.C.? You don't wanna find the cure?"

He kept pace with her easily. It wasn't exactly hard. She was a head shorter than him and a hell of a lot weaker than he was. He could have been running circles around her and she wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. Abraham had warned her off of the man. Had told her that he thought he was a bit of trouble and that even if he was a good guy, she shouldn't just fall for that act. She'd been confused. She was a good judge of character and she knew when someone was or wasn't telling the truth. Daryl was a good guy, even if he was a bit miserable at times. 

"Of course I want to find the cure," Erin rolled her eyes. "But what cure is there to find? Don't tell me that you believe all this shit that Eugene has been spieling off. It just doesn't make sense. I've been going along with it because either way, our group had to be headed somewhere, and it didn't bother me whether it was Washington or not. Doesn't mean I think there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

Daryl narrowed his eyes at the woman next to him. Over the last few days, he had learnt that she was no stranger to voicing her opinion. It almost made him smile sometimes, the little spats she would get into with Abraham where she would tell him exactly what she thought about whatever he had said. She was independent, he knew that much. Not in the kind of way where she could completely defend herself and not in the way where she didn't need to lean on anybody for support, but in a headstrong manner that made her a force to be reckoned with. 

"So, there isn't a cure?" He asked her, slightly confused as Abraham, Eugene and Rosita had been cheerleading the idea of a cure since he had met them.

"I don't know, there could be." She shrugged. "But I'm pretty good at seeing through people, and I'm not so sure that Eugene is completely... I don't know. Look, haven't you asked this question yourself? If there was a cure, then why hasn't it already been used? Why has nobody else found it? I know it takes a certain mind, but there a more types of Eugene's mind, surely."

He considered her words. Although he was still in the process of warming to the new members of their group, he already knew that he trusted Erin a hell of a lot more than Eugene. At least she knew how to properly use a gun. He glanced to the group up ahead who had gained quite a few steps on them. With a click of his tongue, he pushed through the undergrowth of the woods. Erin hurried to keep up, matching one of his strides with two of her own. 

"Stop falling behind. You're keeping us back."

Erin glared at the back of Daryl's head. He often did this. Went from one moment of flowing conversation to being bluntly rude and telling her off for everything that she did. She sighed and picked up her pace. There was no point irritating the man. He would probably just drag her by her hair if it came to it. Erin had noticed that Daryl was close to Carol in their prison group. She'd witnessed them a few times when they set up camp at night, going off to have private conversations. They seemed like such opposites, that she had no clue as to why they would like each other. But then, she never thought she would have any sort of friendship with a man like Abraham Ford, yet she would now count him as her closest ally. 

As she joined up with the rest of the group, she caught Abraham's eye. He'd been feeding this idea of Washington to Rick the whole time. She didn't agree with it. Erin had once been sitting on the fence about the idea of it all, but that was when it had just been her, Abraham, Rosita and Eugene. Now that there were more people involved, more lives at stake, she was completely against it. Daryl had told the group that another member of their group, Beth, was still alive and out there somewhere. It wouldn't be right for them to ask the group to forget about her and to turn their backs to help them. To join them on a mission that ultimately lead to a dead end. It was one thing for Abraham to ask Erin to give her life for Eugene, but it was another for him to ask a whole team of people to do it as well. A team of people that had people to live for.

Abraham knew what she thought about it. He rarely brought it up in conversation when she was around to hear it. All he could from her when she overheard a mention of it was an annoyed expression made up of pursed lips and flashing eyes. He fell in line with her to talk to her. He knew that he had to have her on board to get the others fully agreed to it too. Erin was one of his biggest negotiating chips. She was a calm headed woman who people seemed to listen to in times of need from what he had experienced, and he needed someone like that at his side. But just as he was about to open his mouth to talk to her, there was a scream. The group all whipped their heads round in the direction of the shrill noise. Without so much as a blink of the eye, they were all moving quicker than they had in days in the direction of the noise. They came to a stop when they witnessed the scene. A man standing on top of a rock, surrounded by grabbing Walkers. Rick and Daryl rushed to fend off the enemies. Erin's eyebrows raised to her hairline when she saw what the man was wearing... a Priest? 

Once the threat had been abolished, the man clambered down from his spot. He had shaking knees and trembling hands. After a couple of moments of uncomfortable silence, he heaved and threw up all over the ground in front of them. Erin crinkled her nose in disgust. No matter how many times she had had to deal with sick, she'd never quite grown accustomed to it.

"I'm Father Gabriel Stokes," The man introduced himself with a weak voice.

Erin had never been all that religious. Lapsed, perhaps. She'd said her prayers to God when she'd needed help, but she'd ignored Him for the most part. Maybe she should have prayed a little more. Maybe everyone should have.

"No, I don't have any weapons." Father Gabriel answered one of Rick's questions. "The Word of God is the only protection I need."

"Sure don't look like it," Daryl muttered under his breath.

"Well... I called for help, and God answered with your arrival."

Erin glanced around at the group she was in. Rick, Daryl, Abraham, Glenn, Rosita, Eugene, Maggie, Bob, Tyreese, Sasha, Tara, Carol, Carl, Judith... Not quite the team that she imagined God sending to help someone in need. It was a warped perception of Angels, perhaps. Her eyes glanced over to Daryl in that moment and she looked at the leather vest he wore, adorned with angel wings. She smiled a little to herself at the irony. An angel sent from the heavens above. He would be livid if she told him that.

"Where have you been staying?" Rick demanded the scared man.

"A Church." He confessed. "It's nearby. I've been holed up in there since this began, living off food from a canned food drive we held just before."

"How many Walkers have you killed?"

"Not any, actually."

"How many people have you killed?"

"None."

"Why?"

"Because the Lord abhors violence."

"What have you done? We've all done something."

"I am a sinner. I sin almost every day. But those sins... I confess them to God, not strangers."

It was clear that Rick, and the majority of the group, did not trust Father Gabriel. Erin tilted her head to one side as she regarded the man. He didn't seem like a threat to her, not with the way his clothes were kept neat and tidy and the way his hands still continued to shake even once the threat was gone. Perhaps he thought of them as the threat. They didn't exactly look friendly, with their dirt-smeared bodies and bloodied weapons and clothes. Father Gabriel offered to take them back to the church. They all knew they needed to rest, and in the middle of nowhere, or so it seemed, getting the offer of a roof over their head was more than they could hope for. Erin knew that they must have been close to a town now that there were survivors and a church nearby. Which meant there had to be other places they could raid. Other places where they could start to pick up the pieces.

The group started the walk to the church, Father Gabriel tentatively leading them. As they walked, Abraham finally managed to get the chance to turn to Erin. He cleared his throat to get her attention and she looked up at him with raised eyebrows that prompted him to go on. She was a good listener, and Abraham hoped that she would find the reason to hear him out.

"You're still on board for... Washington, right?" He asked, looking around the treeline and avoiding her piercing stare as they followed the group.

"I don't know," She sighed. "Hell, I want to be. I want to tell you that Washington is still the best idea I've ever heard and that we should pack up everything and get going now, but I can't. I just don't think it's an option. I... I don't know anymore. Why don't we just wait it out a while longer? Help Maggie find her sister and then maybe you can pitch going."

"But we need to find the cure now, Erin. There's no time to waste. This mission is in action."

"If there is a cure - if - then it's not going anywhere. It's going to be there if we get to Washington tomorrow, or if we get there at the end of the year. We can't expect these people to just come along with us just because we need the help. They have things that need doing too. But at the end of the day, it's your call, Abe... And you know that I'll do whatever it is that you think is right."

Abraham looked at his small companion. She was so level headed and so much like his wife used to be. He supressed an audible sigh and just nodded at her. 

"I saw you talking to Daryl earlier," He commented, surprising Erin with the random change of topic.

"And?" She asked with a slight snap to her voice.

"Don't want you getting yourself into any trouble now. Steer clear."

Erin couldn't help but to gape after the redheaded man as he tore in front of her and walked up to the front doors of the church that they had just approached.


	8. The House of God

Daryl knelt down on the carpeted flooring and turned an empty can in his rough hands. Erin glanced away, examining the interior of the quaint Church. She'd never really spent many of her Sunday's holed up in the house of God. She'd normally be spending them nursing hangovers. She still would be, if she were living in the world she used to know. Father Gabriel watched the group nervously as they moved through all the rooms and inspected his living situation. Erin glanced up and saw Abraham, Rick and Michonne talking. She rolled her eyes, already knowing what it would be about. Abraham became firmer in his choices to never listen to her. She looked back over her shoulder at Daryl again as he got up from his crouched position.

"Do you always have that thing ready and loaded?" She nodded at the crossbow in his hands.

"Don't see you complainin'," He grumbled. "It saved your life, didn't it?"

He nudged past her and Erin couldn't help the little smile that tilted her lips up. He was so grumpy. Erin wondered if he'd been in a relationship before all of this. If he'd been the type of guy to flirt with women, or to merely shun them away from them as he finished his beer. Because she was starting to think that he was more and more like the latter.

She made her way over to the gathered group. Father Gabriel was telling Rick about a local food bank that he hadn't tried yet because it was overrun with Walkers. That was when the group decided to pull the strings together and start making their living something worthwhile. Rick, Michonne, Sasha and Bob offered to accompany Father Gabriel to the food bank to help him kill the Walkers and bring supplies back to the Church. Father Gabriel attempted to worm his way out of the task, but Rick insisted he be the one to help them. He needed to learn how to kill a Walker if he wanted any chance of surviving. Erin wasn't sure how he had managed to go this long without killing any of them. Once they left, the Church immediately felt empty, even though a fair amount of the group were left over. Maggie and Glenn made their way outside to talk. Erin cautiously sat on one of the pews, folding her hands in her lap. She felt that she had to be respectful here.

A shifting sounded from beside her and she glanced over to see Carl sat down. Rick's son was stronger than half of the people in this group. His mindset was unbreakable. Erin glanced at the silencer on the end of his gun. He had it constantly poised in his hands, as if he were always waiting for someone to attack. Erin rested her hand on her gun and wondered if she should pull it out, but thought otherwise. She wouldn't need much time to react if there was a real threat.

"Your dad leave you in charge?" Erin asked, nodding at the Sheriff's hat that rested upon his dark hair.

"Yep," Carl nodded, looking around at his surroundings and at the other people holed up in the Church, all focusing on something different; Abraham had since headed outside to look at a bus that he thought they would all be able to travel on, all the way up to Washington D.C.

"So, he was Sheriff? That's pretty cool. Bet you wanted to be just like your dad, huh?"

"You don't have to talk to me like I'm a kid."

Erin leant back slightly at his words but just nodded. He was right. He was the closest thing to an adult that he could be right now. It was sad how quickly this world had forced him to grow up. Erin tugged her hair from her ponytail, allowing it to fall loose around her shoulders. She knew that she should cut it. She knew that it was dangerous to have it so long, and that anything could grab onto it and it could hold her back. But she wanted to keep something remaining from her old life. Just a slither of something.

"Carol and Daryl have gone to get water," Carl spoke up again.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. Surely Daryl should have been here at the Church, keeping an eye on everyone, rather than Carl. He was Rick's right hand man after all. In the end, Erin just nodded and lapsed back into silence. She couldn't force someone to take on a role that wasn't essentially theirs. Besides, she still knew next to nothing about half the people in this group. She didn't really know Daryl Dixon. Sure, she had watched him from afar and she had listened to his every word, but that didn't mean she knew him. The only words they had exchanged had been idle chit chat that often stemmed from him telling her not to do something, or to hurry up and do something. They were acquaintances, if anything. Daryl didn't seem like the kind of man who would be easy to grow close with, and Erin had already accepted that. Some people in your life just never became anything more than a person in your life.

*

The smaller group returned from their run, no harm done. As everyone started to help place all the food in a storage place, Maggie knelt down next to Erin. Erin smiled over at the woman. She'd gotten to know her briefly when the group had all been driving to Terminus together and she had taken a liking to her. She saw a lot of herself in her. Every time she witnessed Maggie and Glenn together, a surge of hope rushed through her. They were a beacon of light in the darkness.

"You ever much of a cook?" Maggie asked, depositing another pile of canned food on the floor at Erin's feet.

"Nah." Erin grinned. "I was way more of a kettle and a pack of noodles type of person. Couldn't cook for shit. Not that that's been much of a problem now. I don't think I've had anything hot in... well. I can't remember."

"Crazy, isn't it? I think the last time I had a proper cooked meal was back on my daddy's farm. That feels like a lifetime ago. Before... before everything that happened."

Erin had not heard much of the woman's story, nor had she shared her own with her. She was silent for a couple of minutes as she arranged the tins of food. Some people didn't want to say anything, and some people wanted to talk about it all and lay it out on the table. At some point, as earned survivors, they would all have to be able to do that.

"Your dad didn't make it then?" Erin asked quietly.

"He did," Maggie said. "From the farmhouse, I mean. He, uh... we moved to this prison, with the rest of the group. He lost his life there. Just after was when all the group were split up. But, they're all my family now. I wouldn't trade any of them for the world."

"I'm real sorry about your dad... and your sister, too. But... at least we know that she's still alive."

"She might not be anymore. I pray that she is, but I'm not gonna get my hopes up. I want nothing more than to find her alive. I do. But you can't wish for anything now."

Maggie sighed and Erin found herself nodding. She had wished and wished not to lose Max, but where had that got her? She knew exactly what Maggie was going through. She chewed her lower lip as she glanced over at Abraham, still making the rounds on everyone and selling his plan for Washington. Most people were buying into it. How could Erin blame them? She had too, once.

"Are you willing to go to Washington and risk giving up looking for your sister?" Erin suddenly blurted out, surprising Maggie.

"I don't want to give up looking for Beth... But right now, I don't have much choice. I need to do what's best for the group. With any luck, we'll find Beth on the way. Look, I don't know. This is all just one big mess that we shouldn't have been in."

Erin felt guilty for pressing the ultimatum on Maggie. It wasn't her place to do so, and she didn't even know where Beth could be. Heck, she could be on her way to Washington herself now. Erin glanced up as the Church doors opened, Daryl and Carol wandering in. She glanced away quickly as Daryl's eyes skimmed the small room and landed on her and Maggie. Maggie was deep in thought. Would joining the group to Washington mean that she had to give up on her sister? 

"We'll find your sister," Erin spoke again, meeting the other woman's eyes and offering her a warm smile. "I lost my brother through all of this. I know how horrible it is to be without the people you truly care about. I want to help you find your sister, more than this mission to Washington. We will find her. I promise. Abe might seem all gung ho about this, but he'll help too. He wouldn't want to see an innocent life lost."

Maggie smiled and leant across to the other woman, wrapping her arms around her in a tight hug. Surprised, Erin slowly returned the gesture, squeezing her back. They remained like that for a couple of minutes before pulling away and acting as if nothing had happened. Later that night at dinner, the group were in high spirits. Erin grinned at a stupid comment that Eugene had made about something, Tara also rolling her eyes and the two women sharing a look. Abraham looked happier than he had in days. He looked over at Erin as she ate the apricots from the can in front of her. She caught his eye and her eyes crinkled up as she smiled at him. A genuine smile. Erin had noticed that Bob was the only one who was not as involved with the rest of the group. He was happy, but more of a reminiscent type. She'd not really gotten to know the man, but she knew he and Sasha were in some sort of relationship. Another thing that gave her hope. Her eyes skirted around the group and eventually landed on Daryl. Carol had excused herself to go outside for a breath of fresh air just a few moments before. Daryl lifted his head and met Erin's gaze straight on.

She chewed the food in her mouth slowly. Normally, she would have snapped her head away and acted as if she weren't staring. But, she held his dark gaze and raised an eyebrow as if she was challenging him. He watched her for a couple of seconds. He'd not quite been able to figure her out. He'd watched her earlier as she held Maggie in an iron grip of a hug. He'd never seen her display any physical kind of affection before then, not even with Abraham, who she seemed to be attached at the hip with. She very rarely displayed much emotion at all. He might have only known her for a few days, but that was a long time to be in someone's presence 24/7, and you tended to know a person from that length of time. But, he'd not witnessed many emotions on her face. She mainly remained stoic, a straight face with slightly creased eyebrows. When she did smile, on the rare occassion, it was a radiant one. All of her teeth flashed in a welcoming grin and her eyes became little crescent moons as they creased up. He'd watched her smile quite a few times over dinner tonight. He'd so much as even noticed the small dimple in her left cheek. He shook his head and turned back to his food. It was stupid. He had to keep one image and one image only of her in his mind - not the Erin with the lovely smile, but the Erin with the straight face.

"So, I think now is the time that I pitch D.C. to all of you one last time," Abraham spoke up over the small crowd.

There were a couple of murmurs within the group. Erin finished off her food, setting the can inside. She caught Maggie's eye across the circle and gave her an encouraging smile. 

"We're in," Rick said after a moment's deliberation.

Erin couldn't help but smile as a cheer erupted around the group. Maybe this was the smartest option. She laughed as Tyreese loudly whooped, clapping his hands together. This was the first time since Terminus that she had seen everyone look so happy. Even when she noticed Daryl get up and leave to head outside, it didn't dim her joy. Later, Bob also left the group, heading outside of the Church and into the darkness. Erin gathered up what was left of her things and set them up in a corner of the Church, getting ready to settle down for the night. Daryl, Carol and Bob would all be back soon. She didn't have them to worry about. So, with a smile still loitering on her face, she closed her eyes and allowed sleep to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took a while to update! I've had dull uni essays to do, which unfortunately take up a lot of free time.  
> Thanks again for the hits and Kudos. Means a lot! Hope you enjoy this chapter.


	9. Search Mission

A low thrum of chatter caused Erin to stir in her sleep. She groaned as she pushed herself up on her elbows, surveying the dim church that she was laid in. It took a while to recollect her thoughts about the past twenty four hours, but she finally cleared the haze in her mind and scrambled up to her feet, hitching her jeans up and stepping away from her small area she'd been sleeping in to see what the commotion was about. Rick Grimes was running a stressed hand through his mattered hair. He didn't seem like the right person to approach and talk to at the moment. Erin wandered over to Abraham, where he stood talking in hushed whispers with Rosita, and caught onto his elbow, tugging him round to look at her. 

"What's going on?" Erin asked, looking between him and Rosita.

"Nothing," Abraham grunted. "Nothing you need to worry about anyway. Didn't wanna wake you. You've not had a proper night's sleep in a long time."

Her companion wasn't wrong. She hadn't slept properly in weeks, but that didn't mean she wanted to be left on the sidelines. She glanced over to see a nervous Father Gabriel. Everyone's suspicions about him would be heightened, for whatever reason. 

"Something's wrong," Erin stated bluntly.

"Bob's missing," Rosita chimed in. "Daryl and Carol, too. They've searched the surrounding area of the church but they're nowhere."

Erin's eyes narrowed. She'd seen all three of them leave the church before she'd drifted off to sleep. She hadn't realised that none of them returned. Were they all together? She knew Daryl and Carol would be, at least. They were always together. She thought back to how wistful Bob had looked when they had all sat around as a group, laughing and joking over dinner. She hadn't thought much of it at the time, but maybe his sadness was a reason for him to run off. To leave the group for good. Sadness could drive people to do mad things. She looked back over to Father Gabriel and Rick, where Rick was grilling the man about a message that Carl had found on the back windows of the church. A threat. He demanded what Gabriel knew, what he was hiding. 

"Standing here isn't going to get us very far." Erin muttered. "We should at least go out and look again."

Abraham didn't stop her as she walked away from him and Rosita. Nobody even glanced up at her as she wrenched open the doors to the church and stepped outside into the cool night breeze. The night was thick with darkness and all Erin could see for miles around were the lining of trees. The only other thing in the small clearing was the bus that Abraham had been going on about. The bus that was going to take them all the way to D.C., where they would be completely safe. Erin knew they weren't safe anywhere at this point. Not even in a church. If they could be safe in a church, how was anywhere else going to be any different? 

Knowing that there was a potential danger outside the walls of the church, Erin reached for her gun from her holster and pulled it out, clicking the safety off and readying herself in case she needed to shoot. She missed having her hunting knife tucked away in her boot. She would have to make it her mission to come about one soon. Cautiously, she made her way down the steps of the church, wincing with every creak that the swollen wood made. The others had already searched the surrounding area and had probably already deemed it as safe, but that didn't mean that it was now. She wasn't sure why she'd gone outside to look for the missing members of the group. It wasn't as if she really owed anything to any of them, apart from Daryl saving her life that one time, and she didn't really have much of a connection with any of them yet. She wasn't obligated to search for them. But something in the back of her mind told her to. Something told her that she should be finding them and bringing them back to the group. Plus, maybe she kind of did owe Daryl one. 

Erin crept around the perimeter of the church. Once she made it round safely twice, she let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. Someone had to have come and taken the others from the area, or they had willingly left. There were no other explanations for it. Erin sighed to herself and decided to head a little deeper into the woods around the church and continue searching. She pulled out the flashlight she had stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans a couple of days ago. The batteries were dying and it took a few hits from her hand to get the light fully shining, but it finally lit the path for her in the shadows. She knew she shouldn't be going out alone if there were any dangerous beings out there, and she knew that Abraham would give her a good talking to if he knew how far she went without him by her side.

As she started to wander away from the camp, she had no idea that Gareth and a few of the other surviving members from Terminus were just a few feet away from her, crouching in the bushes out of her line of sight. Gareth squinted through the dark to watch the woman for a couple of minutes. She trudged over a fallen branch and whipped her head round at the sound of an animal rustling in a nearby tree, her dark hair flying over her shoulder. It flowed down past her shoulders now that it was loose. Once she realised she was being paranoid and the noise was nothing, she laughed quietly to herself and continued walking, putting more distance between herself and Gareth. Gareth turned to glance down at the body by his feet. The gagged Bob, with half of one of his legs now chopped away and fed to the surviving members of Terminus. He had told them that he had been bit. That his blood was infected. Gareth still had a sour taste in his mouth at the thought of it. Once he knew that the young woman was far enough away from him to hear anything, he ordered his men to chuck Bob before the church and whistled before they all moved, allowing the other group members to know what had become of their friend. Gareth then turned his head in the direction that Erin had headed.

*

Erin had no idea what the time was. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been out in the woods, waving her flashlight around and looking out for any signs that Daryl, Carol or Bob had been around these areas. Her feet were starting to ache, so she took that as a sign that she'd been walking for a while. What if the other members of the group had already returned to the church? What if she was on a wild goose chase? What if everyone was now out looking for her and she'd gone too far? She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind and turned her flashlight to the left when she heard a sound that resembled footsteps. Nothing. The shadows were getting the better of her thoughts.

She thought back to when she had last been alone in all of this. After she had lost Max and before she'd met Abraham. Those had been trying weeks for her. She'd barely managed to survive on her own. When Abraham had found her, she'd been close to bidding the world goodbye. If it hadn't been for meeting him, she would have been dead by now. Her eyes flickered up through the clearing in the tree tops towards the moon, big and bright in the night sky. Bigger and brighter than she'd ever seen.

*

Abraham was frantic. Bob had explained what had happened to him. What had happened with the men from Terminus. And now Erin was wandering out there somewhere on her own. He'd taken to checking outside with Rosita and Glenn for twenty minutes, but none of them could find her anywhere. She had completely disappeared from the scene. Had Gareth swooped in and taken her just like he'd taken Bob?

"We need to get to this elementary school." Abraham demanded Rick. "That's where she's gonna be. She can't be anywhere else. We need to get to her before it's too late."

"I thought you wanted to leave for Washington now," Rick said wearily.

"There's nothing I want more, but there's no way in Hell I'm going to leave without Erin. We're going to find her. And we're going to kill those bastards."

*

When she was no longer immersed in trees, she knew that she didn't have much chance in finding the missing three members of her group. They were long gone, wherever it was. She sighed and turned back on her heel, hoping that retracing her steps in a straightforward direction would be easy enough. She kept the flashlight held high in her hand and made sure that it illuminated enough of the immediate area around her so that she wasn't caught off guard by anything. She'd taken down a total of seventeen Walkers while she'd been out here. She'd found a dagger wedged into the waistband of one of the corpses, and had quickly claimed it as her own. A gun was too obvious for taking them down and she needed to be quiet in such a condensed area so that she didn't draw any unwanted attention to herself. She was lucky that there had been no large groups of them. But, it wasn't Walkers that she was scared of. Walkers wouldn't have been the things to drag her group members away into oblivion.

Erin tilted her head when she heard the rustling of leaves. She kept thinking that she heard footsteps following her, but she'd never found any culprit nearby. Maybe she was being watched. Maybe Sasha was right when she had accused Father Gabriel of having people watch them and the church. Erin shrugged it off again as simple paranoia. She shivered as a breeze whipped her hair around her face. She'd not had time to pull on her denim jacket before leaving the church on her impromptu search mission and was left in just a tank and grubby grey flannel shirt. She twiddled her newfound knife around in her free hand as she ambled quickly through the woods she found herself back in again. To distract herself from the eerie silence, she started to hum a song lowly under her breath. The hum and the crunch of her own footsteps was all she could hear. And then, suddenly, with quick movement that she would have never been able to predict, someone was in front of her.

A gun was raised to her face. In total surprise, she dropped the knife and torch and held her hands out in surrender. She narrowed her eyes to look at the person wielding the weapon at her. A young black man dressed in what looked like scrubs. He was tense and nervous. She wasn't even sure he'd ever used a gun before in his life. She either had the choice to try and talk him out of it and remain as calm as she could, or she would have to make a hasty move to shoot first. 

"Noah! Drop it."

Her eyes widened in surprise at the sound of a familar voice. Her eyes darted over to see Daryl Dixon standing there, his crossbow ready as always. She noticed that he wasn't with Carol. She was nowhere to be seen. Erin couldn't tell if that was good or not. 'Noah' glanced between Daryl and Erin a few times before he lowered his gun and heaved out a breath. Daryl was staring at Erin in a manner that almost made him look angry. Maybe he was angry. Erin lowered her hands and knelt down, retrieving her knife and torch and standing back up, illuminating Daryl and Noah's faces in the flourescent light.

"Who the hell is this?" She demanded as she looked the new face up and down.

"Doesn't matter," Daryl replied gruffly. "I'm more interested in why the hell you're out here by your damned self?"

Erin uneasily looked away from his sharp eyes. She knew it had been stupid and reckless, but it wasn't as if anybody had stopped her from leaving the church in the first place, for they knew she was capable. She could be independent when she needed and wanted to be. That's all there was to it. 

"I came out looking for you, Carol and Bob." Erin snapped back. 

"Bob?" Daryl frowned. "Where's Bob?"

"I don't know, does it look like I've found him?"

Daryl glared at Erin's sarky comment, motioning his head sharply and walking off. Knowing instantly what it meant, both Erin and Noah started to follow the man. Erin knew that he was good at navigating himself, and found herself trusting that he would lead them successfully back to the church. She kept a distance between her and Noah. He looked like he had a shaky trigger finger.

"Where's Carol?" Erin asked, catching up with Daryl's steps.

"Lost her, same place we lost Beth to," Daryl grunted. "Some hospital. Grady Memorial. We'll get the group to go up there and get them back."

"A hospital? Are they - right. Okay - who is this?"

Noah cringed back from the intensity of Erin's stare as she turned to look at him. She had piercing grey eyes that, when they weren't alight with humour, were very cold. He could tell that despite the woman being small and slender, she probably held more of a threat than even the burly Daryl Dixon standing beside her. He also had an odd feeling that Daryl knew that as well.

"Noah," He introduced himself cautiously. "I was at the hospital with Beth. We tried to escape together, but... only I got out. That's when I found Daryl and Carol. And if you don't mind me asking... you are?"

"Erin." 

That was all she said. Noah decided not to press anymore. He'd got a name, and that was all he needed as far as he was concerned. Erin looked him over once more before shooting him a reluctant smile which he hesitantly returned. She turned back to Daryl and they walked in silence for a couple of minutes. Daryl looked down at her dark head bobbing beside his. She'd been wandering around out here for hours on end searching for him? On her own? She'd risked her own life for his? For people that she didn't really know all that well? He scoffed. Women could be stupid.

"You're lucky you didn't get yourself killed out here," Daryl said almost softly as he shot down a Walker in the distance with a swift bolt from his crossbow.

"I know how to handle myself." Erin rolled her eyes. "It's not as if I've never been alone before. Besides, I have weapons."

"Anything could have been out here. Not just Walkers. You stupid or somethin'?"

She didn't have much to say to that. She just kept quiet and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Maybe she was. That didn't give Daryl a right to judge her for coming out of her way to look for him and possibly save his arse. In fact, she wanted to save his arse. She wanted to prove that he wasn't the only hero around here. That she could just as easily help him out as he could her. Because she had an odd feeling that he was starting to think that she couldn't pull her weight around and that she needed someone constantly looking out for her. And she knew damned well that she didn't.

*

Gareth and the other Terminus members were dead. Abraham stood in front of the bus, stressed and anxious. They'd not found Erin. Gareth hadn't even mentioned her as bait at all, not even on death's door. Eugene, Rosita, Glenn, Maggie and Tara were all waiting for his go ahead for them to leave for Washington. Rick had said that he and the others would wait behind at the church for Daryl, Carol and Erin to return. If they returned. Then they would follow them to Washington. Abraham groaned. Since meeting Erin, he'd never gone a day without her. They'd fought all their battles together. She'd been one of the Washington mission team members from the beginning, always lending her hand to protect Eugene and risk her own life. He couldn't leave without her. 

Tyreese was digging a grave for Bob just a little way away. Bob had eventually said that it was time for him to go, before the bite took him over. This day was going to shit.

"Don't worry." Rick said as he took the map that Abraham handed him with the route to follow. "We'll all meet up again soon. She'll be fine. I'll keep an eye on her when she's back, explain everything that went on here."

"Abe," Rosita caught his arm. "She won't blame you for leaving. She'll have wanted you to leave. You know she'll throw a fit if she finds out you stayed here just to wait for her."

Abraham nodded. He knew Rosita was right. Erin would get pissed if she found out that he thought she needed him to protect her. But, he'd not gone a day without Erin, and he didn't want to start that now. Still, he shrugged it off and just agreed with the others, telling them to get on the bus and get ready to leave. They were heading for Washington. He was betting that Erin was still alive out there somewhere. There was no way that she was dead. He'd be seeing her again soon.

"You guys hurry up and get on the road," Abraham said. "I'll be expecting to see you all soon."

*

As light was beginning to break, Erin realised they were getting closer to the church. At last. Her aching feet sang. The majority of the walk with Noah and Daryl had been silent. She'd asked Noah a few questions and he'd answered easily, but other than that, nothing. Daryl seemed annoyed, probably about Carol and Beth, and Erin avoided asking him anything with his pissed off expression warning her off. She had noticed him glancing over at her a few times. Daryl couldn't keep his eyes off of her. He was afraid that she would all of a sudden disappear from his side, like she had done from the group at the church. He blamed himself for Sophia, he blamed himself for Beth, he blamed himself for Carol. He couldn't blame himself for Erin too. He wouldn't allow it. There was no way he was going to let another person become a victim out of his poor judgements.

Erin seemed so carefree as she wandered at his side. There wasn't an ounce of worry etched on her face, even though he was sure she was just as worried as him. She hid it well behind her mask. He thought back to when she'd said she'd been alone before. How long for? How much danger had she been in when she'd been alone? Daryl had first thought that Abraham probably did all the fighting for her, Rosita and Eugene alike. He was starting to get a new image of her in his mind. She was fiercely independent and had a lot of built up bravery to be able to just go off on a search mission on her own. Daryl could see a lot of similarities between him and Erin, as much as he hated to admit it. 

"We're going to get Carol and Beth back," She spoke up in the silence, surprising him.

If she had no obligation to going to find him, she definitely had none for finding Beth. But, she was so genuine in the way she said it. She actually wanted to help people, even if she didn't know them. That trait was rare now. Daryl had noticed that even though she'd had her guard up when she met Noah, she still welcomed him almost instantly once she deemed him to not be a threat. Daryl cursed to himself. That kind of open-hearted attitude would manage to get her killed. He couldn't let that happen to her. He wouldn't let that happen to her. She didn't deserve it. Nobody did, but there was something else about her that made it more so.

Finally, they reached the clearing of the woods that led through to the church. Daryl noticed Michonne and Father Gabriel sat on the steps outside. The bus was gone. The others must have been inside. He and Erin stepped out into the light first. Michonne's eyes lit up at the sight of them but her face quickly turned to a frown when she realised that Carol was not with them, despite having been with Daryl when she'd left. Daryl would have a lot of explaining to do. He glanced to the small woman at his side to see her head off quickly into the church, clearly in search of Abraham. A funny feeling forced itself into the pit of his stomach. She always looked to Abraham first. No matter what the situation, her eyes always turned to him in the group, as if waiting for his approval. Waiting for him to say something so she could lap up his every word. Jealousy? No. Daryl smirked to himself. Daryl didn't get jealous. 

"Come on out," He said gruffly, nodding for Noah to step out and present himself to the rest of his group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the Kudos & comments! It's lovely to know that people are enjoying this work.  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter too x


	10. Crossed

"Washington?" Erin asked with a frown as she stood in the aisle between the pews.

Tyreese nodded in affirmation. Erin sighed. How could she blame them? Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Glenn, Maggie and Tara had already all left for D.C. Tyreese told her that the plan was for them to meet them on the way. This would be the first time she'd gone without her original group. She should have been there to go with Abraham, to support him. She was the only one who could keep the hothead at bay when Eugene made a stupid comment, the only one who could talk him into doing something a little bit more reckless to save them time. 

She shrugged off the overshadowing thought that anything might happen to either one of the separated groups and turned to look around the church. Rick, Michonne, Carl, Judith, Tyreese, Sasha and Father Gabriel still remained. Erin glanced down at the floor of the church to see the staining of blood at her feet. Her eyebrows furrowed together. There hadn't been any blood there when she'd left, she remembered that much.

"Did Bob make it back?" She glanced nervously up at Tyreese, afraid of what he might have to say about his sister's companion.

"He made it back." Tyreese muttered. "Just didn't last long. Gareth and some of his men took him. Chopped his leg off. He'd been bit already. We killed Gareth and the others. Uh, right where you're standing, actually."

"And then... you killed Bob, too?"

"It was his time."

Erin took a shaky breath in but nodded. It had to be done. Her eyes focused on the patch of blood on the floor again. One enemy was gone. How many more were there? While Daryl introduced Noah and explained his story to the other members of the church group, Erin sat outside on the steps. She rested her elbows on her knees and placed her chin in her hand, staring glumly ahead. 

There was a creaking on the step behind her as someone walked out onto the porch. Erin didn't turn her head as someone eased themselves into a sitting position next to her. After a few minutes of feeling the body warmth radiating against her side, she turned her head to smile slightly at Rick. He returned it before following her previous gaze. They both stared at nothing for a while. Erin hadn't gotten to know Rick all that well since joining his group. She listened to his instructions, and offered a word every now and then when he looked like he was waiting for one, but other than that, she didn't really know him. 

"He didn't want to leave without you," Rick commented.

"I know." She nodded. "But I know he had to, don't worry. Besides, you guys here are going to need all the help you can get going to Atlanta to get Carol and Beth back. I know I'm not really a valued member of the group yet, but I'm more than happy to lend you guys a helping hand."

Rick considered the woman beside him. He'd spoken about her with Daryl just a couple of days before. Daryl had said that he wasn't sure about her. That sometimes she was as right as a sunny day, and other times she was a thunderstorm when you least wanted one. He had laughed and told his right hand man that he'd clearly been paying a lot of attention to the woman, because Rick hadn't taken much notice of that. 

"That means a lot, Erin." Rick smiled. "Thank you. I'm sure we'll need your help to get our people back. Then we'll head for D.C. and join up with the others."

"Sounds like a plan," Erin glanced over her shoulder and through the open door of the church, where Daryl, Tyreese and Sasha were taken apart pews to use them as panels to cover the windows of the church and fortify it. Father Gabriel looked beside himself.

"Why don't you go on and help the others?"

Erin nodded at her new leader's suggestion, getting up to her feet and brushing her jeans down. She moved up the steps towards the church door when Rick's voice called out and stopped her in her tracks. She looked back at him expectantly with a raised eyebrow.

"And don't run off again on your own. I don't want to see you getting hurt."

"Yes, Dad." Erin cracked a small grin and saluted the older man.

He laughed as she finally disappeared inside the church. The rest of the afternoon was spent hammering wooden strips over the church windows. Erin felt sweat dripping down her neck as she clamped down on the nails between her teeth, hammering one into the wood. Noah held the panel in place for her as she worked. Everyone else was chipping in at the hard work. Erin had clocked Father Gabriel earlier, knelt down at the blood stain and furiously scrubbing it away from the floors. He'd probably not seen the death of another human being yet. Or, at least not the murder. The first time was the hardest. 

Noah remained silent for the most part as the two of them worked together. Erin noted how down he looked, but decided not to say anything. He seemed like the type of person who would rather suffer in silence than speak up. She couldn't imagine what he had been through at the hospital with Beth, even before she joined him there. From what she had heard of it, it sounded awful. An odd place in an odder world. 

Erin handed the hammer to Noah and wiped the sweat from her brow before holding the panel in place for him to resume the work. After a while, Daryl sauntered over to them. His long hair was greasy from the heat and sweat. He gave Noah the once over as the young man attempted to look like he was putting as much effort into his work while he could while Daryl Dixon loomed over him. Erin smirked a little to herself. Daryl had a much scarier presence than she did, but she was sure that she could give just as good of a tongue lashing as he could.

"Mind givin' us a moment?" Daryl asked Noah.

He nodded and handed the hammer back to Erin, backing off to go and help Sasha. Erin raised her eyebrows at Daryl, handing him the hammer. Without a word, Daryl took up what Noah had been previously doing. She waited cautiously to hear what he wanted to say to her. He very rarely sought her out to talk to her about anything, so she was intrigued. It was normally her that had to do the griling.

"I don't think you should come to Atlanta," The redneck muttered, surprising her.

"And why don't you think I should come?"

"It's gonna be dangerous. There's gonna be all sorts of shit going on. I can't keep my eye on everyone."

"Funny that you think I need to be kept an eye on. I can assure you that I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself, Daryl. Thanks for the thought, but I really don't need you trailing around after me with your crossbow."

"You've haven' been in these types of situations before. You don't know what it's like."

"I've got a pretty good idea. Besides, I've handled some tough stuff myself. Trust me, you're going to need all the hands you can get."

A slightly annoyed expression crossed Daryl's face but he just pursed his lips and continued hammering. Erin passed him another nail and he snatched it from her fingers, lining it up where he wanted to make his mark and forcefully swinging down the hammer with sheer brute. Erin watched the muscles ripple in his tanned arms as he did so.

"Get ready to go then."

With that, he stalked off. Erin headed back inside the church to get herself sorted for the trip. The others had managed to seize her backpack back from the Terminants when they had paid them a visit, along with everyone else's things. She sighed with relief as she rooted through the black bag at her knees. Everything still remained in tact, apart from the stale food that had been shoved in the zipped pocket that was now gone. She traded the kife she had found on her search mission for her old, trusty hunting knife. Pulling a spare t-shirt from the bag, she shrugged off her tank top and flannel shirt and switched into the new item of clothing, feeling instantly fresher despite not having washed in days. She scraped her hair back up into its usual ponytail, a few loose tendrils falling and framing her face. Just as she was about to zip the bag shut and swing it over her shoulder, in case they needed the bag to put anything in on their journey, she caught a glimpse of a bit of glossy paper. She tugged it out and realised that it was a photograph that she had packed before leaving her house a week after the apocalypse had started. She'd ripped it from the frame in her bedroom and shoved it in her bag without even thinking twice about it. A photo of her and Max that always sat on her bedside table. She smiled as she looked at the crinkled photo with the curling corners. She'd almost forgotten his face.

Outside, she met with Rick, Daryl, Tyreese, Sasha and Noah. Michonne, Carl, Judith and Father Gabriel would stay behind, continuing to fortify the church for their return. The six of them in a car they had found was a squeeze. Rick drove with Daryl riding up front, the other four squashed into the back. Erin held her gun on her lap so as not to continuously poke Sasha with it as their thighs knocked against each other on the bumpy journey. Erin watched out the window, thinking back to the time when she'd been in the military truck with Abraham, Rosita and Eugene, with Abraham and Rosita flirting up front as she rolled her eyes in the back. She smiled to herself. 

Daryl directed Rick until they reached an area where the plan was to get out and walk the rest of the way to the hospital so that they wouldn't draw any attention to themselves. Erin hitched her backpack up higher on her shoulders and kept her gun out and ready to use as she followed the group silently along the side of the road. She could see the hospital in the distance, where Carol and Beth were hidden away somewhere in side. Since coming across Rick's group, they'd met so many sick people in the space of days. When they came across an abandoned warehouse not far from the hospital, Rick made the call for them to stop and come up with a reasonable plan of action for them to seize back their group members.

"We should kidnap some of Dawn's officers," Tyreese suggested, referring to the woman Noah had claimed to be in charge of the system. "Arrange a prisoner in exchange."

"Could work," Daryl said gruffly, voicing his support for the plan.

Rick eventually agreed. Erin had no idea how they were going to carry out their plan, but these were Rick's people. She was going to help out with whatever they decided was best for them to get in and out of there with all casualties avoided. Rick seemed to be good at managing to do that so far. They kept in single file as they neared closer to the hospital, slipping round the back and to an alley not that far away. Noah told them that this is the way he'd escaped, after Beth had been caught again and had urged him to go on without her. As Rick went over the plan again, Erin watched over Noah's shoulder to scout out the hospital properly. Through the fencing around it, she could see a couple of armed guards in uniform wandering about beneath the open sky. This place was as good as a prison.

A hand on her elbow knocked her out of her thoughts. She looked over to Daryl's piercing blue eyes as he pulled her down the alley and round the corner, hidden out of sight. He placed a finger to his lips and shushed her before he and Rick let out a couple of shots. Noah remained in view in the alley. It didn't take long before two officers appeared and shouted out, running for Noah and tackling him to the ground. After a couple of minutes of letting them struggle, the group slipped out from their hiding place and all lifted their guns. Erin watched as the two men backed away from Noah, raising their hands as their eyes widened in fear at the sight of the five armed people in front of them. Erin focused her gun on one of them, catching his eye and having to look away quickly as guilt raised in her stomach at his desperate, frantic look. 

"Please... Don't shoot us. We'll do what you want." The one that Erin was aiming at spoke up.

She faltered and was about to lower her gun, but a quick warning look from Daryl told her to keep her guard up. Her arm was beginning to ache with the pressure of keeping it elevated. She had to look strong and fierce, even though she knew there was not a chance in Hell that she would shoot to kill. Not human beings like her. Not unless it was her or them. 

"Just don't struggle," Rick advised them.

Suddenly, the squealing of tyres pulled them all from their trance. A cop car skidded to a halt in front of them and another officer was present. The two officers at gunpoint suddenly took off at a run, making a break for the car and diving into the back of it. Erin cursed under her breath, but she knew the group would not let them get away that easily. They opened fire, shooting at the car and tyres until it shuddered to a halt once more. The three officers had no choice but to remove themselves from the vehicle as the group of six made their way closer. Erin was sure that the gunshots would attract even more officers. She was worried this would not go to plan.

*

Back at the warehouse, Rick interrogated the three officers on what the hospital system was like. Noah had introduced them as Shepherd, Lamson and Licari. Erin watched them from a distance as she reloaded the clip of her handgun. There was a shifting beside her and she already knew it was Daryl from his shadow on the floor before she even turned to look at him. His features were set like a rock, as always. 

"You and Sasha are gonna stay here," he said. "watch over Lamson while we go up and offer the hostage deal to this Dawn woman. We shouldn't be long."

"Not a problem," Erin glanced over at Lamson.

She was a good judge of character, and she didn't trust him much. He'd posed himself as helping Rick, giving him all the tips he needed on making this trade with Dawn, but Erin felt like something was off in his tone. She didn't want to be the reason anything happened on his account, so she decided to instil her trust into Daryl.

"I don't trust the guy," She said, catching Daryl's attention. "He... I don't know, he seems like he has more to gain from this. Why would he so willingly hand over information to Rick when he knows there could be consequences?"

"It's his life at stake," Daryl shrugged, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

Even when Erin had had her gun pointed at him, she had wondered if the look in his eyes that made her hesitate was real or not. She looked back over to the sinister looking officer as he accepted water from Rick. She and Sasha would be able to guard him, she was sure of it, but she didn't know if the others were running into a trap by following the other two officers back to the hospital where supposedly they would be welcomed with open arms.

"You worried he's gonna do somethin' when we're gone?" Daryl asked cautiously, glancing over to Lamson where he sat. 

An image flashed through Daryl's mind. Him coming back and finding Erin shot and dead on the floor in front of him, all because he'd left her even when she'd warned him about her concerns. He shrugged it off. That wouldn't happen. He had to stop finding reason to blame himself for everything that went wrong with this group. 

"Look, forget about it," Erin shook her head. "I'm just worrying over nothing. We've come this far, might as well complete the home run, right? Just... be safe out there."

Daryl eyed the dark haired girl intensely. He very rarely got comments like that from a woman. Be safe. What did that mean? Was that implying that she wanted him to return to her in one whole piece? He was overthinking her words. He knew that she was just a genuinely nice girl who put the care of others before herself. That was all she meant by it. He hitched his crossbow up and nodded.

"You too."

As the group was gearing up to make a move, Sasha and Erin started their guard on Lamson. Even though his wrists were zip tied, Erin watched him like a hawk. Sasha had her rifle constantly at the ready as her eyes flickered to the rest of the group and back to Lamson again and again. He caught Erin's eye as she glared at him. She didn't bother to look away. 

"You play the tough act pretty well," He commented, causing her to bite her tongue to stop a retort from escaping. "But I saw you back there, when you had your gun pointed at me. You didn't want to shoot. Haven't ever shot another person that wasn't turned before, have you?"

"Doesn't matter who I have and haven't shot," Erin lifted one shoulder in a shrug. 

"I knew you wouldn't shoot me. I knew you didn't have the guts to do it. I don't blame you, though. It's difficult. Killing another living person. Really makes you question your morals. Question what you've become. You've gone a long time without having to kill someone in cold blood. At some point, you know you're going to have to. Even if you don't want to, there's going to be a time when -"

"Shut up."

Lamson opened his mouth as if he were about to go on, but he heeded Erin's sharp tone and silenced himself. The rest of the group had departed the warehouse to either go on watch, or head on over to the hospital. A tense air set in the warehouse. Sasha looked over at Erin and shot her a reassuring smile. She knew that Erin was feeling wound up at his words, but she knew she wasn't stupid enough to take his jeers and games to heart. 

"You know," Erin rolled her eyes as Lamson started to speak again. "Outside... an old colleague of mine. He, uh, turned into one of those things. He's still alive as one of them, but he's been melted into the asphalt in the heat. It's real awful to see. I would have done something about it I'd had the chance..."

Sympathy glazed over in Sasha's eyes. Erin knew how much that must hit home for her. She'd just had to have Bob put down to save him and the rest of them more grief than was necessary. She bit her lower lip as she looked over at Lamson. His face had contorted into one of genuine sadness. Erin frowned. He'd her that she was good at playing an act, but she couldn't even slightly match him. 

"I'll shoot him, if you want," Sasha offered quietly.

Lamson's eyes sparked up. Erin sighed. She couldn't hold this wish against him. He wanted to put a friend out of their eternal misery. Who wouldn't? Sasha guided Lamson up and he lead her over to a window in the warehouse, where she propped her rifle up and looked through the scope, searching for the Walker she was to put down. Erin stood a little way back, gun ready in her hands. She noticed that Lamson was watching her from the corner of his eye, waiting to see if she would come any closer to him and Sasha.

In a shock turn of events, Lamson had wrenched his wrists free and slammed Sasha's head against the window she was looking out of. Erin gave a scream of surprise as she hurried to lift her gun. With blood dripping down the side of her head from catching it on the now smashed glass, Sasha slipped down the side of the wall, falling to the floor unconscious. Lamson dove for her rifle and seized it up, pointing it at Erin. Her hands trembled as her finger rested on the trigger of her own gun. He was sure to shoot before she would. She wouldn't let him have the satisfaction of it. As he carefully stepped away from Sasha's body, gun trained on Erin at all times, he moved closer to the exit of the warehouse. Erin;s eyes nervously switched between him and Sasha's body as she too followed his moves with her gun. 

"Stop moving," She commanded, in a voice that surprisingly came out stronger than she'd expected, despite the hoarseness. "Don't move another step, or I'll plant a bullet between your eyes so quick, you won't have time to blink."

"Big threat from someone who's never shot anyone before," Lamson smirked.

"Drop the gun."

He started to take slow, calculated steps to her. She edged away from him, putting herself between his body and the exit. She hoped that Sasha would come to soon. That she would be able to help her. Because right now, Erin didn't really know the protocol without someone nudging her in the right direction. Lamson slowly lowered the rifle, but didn't release it from his clenched hands. Erin glanced over her shoulder at the door. Surely one of the group members heard her scream. They couldn't be that far. They said they weren't going to go that far. 

"Come on, don't be like this," Lamson advanced again. "I don't want to have to shoot you. You seem nice enough. How about you just stop pretending you know your way around that gun? Come on - give it to me. Let me past, and we don't have a problem here."

"Stay back," Erin threatened. "You don't want to do this. I will - I will shoot you."

"No. You won't."

With one shake of his head, Lamson lunged for Erin. Her breath caught in her throat as he tackled her to the floor. She writhed under his heavy body, aware of the cold metal of Sasha's rifle pressing up against a slither of bare skin where her t-shirt had risen. He raised his free hands to her neck, and she knew that there was not much hope as he closed the around her, preparing to strangle her to keep her down. Turning red and blue from the struggle and pressure, Erin squirmed violently, freeing her trapped arm from beneath him and managing to get a good enough grip on her arm. She couldn't lift it high enough to shoot him where it mattered, but she could shoot. Wheezing out her restricted breaths, she pulled the trigger harshly. A choked noise escaped Lamson's mouth. He staggered back, blood pouring from the wound Erin had created in his shoulder. The bullet hadn't made an exit wound. Erin scrambled out from beneath his knelt frame, backing herself up against the wall and lifting her gun, preparing to shoot again, but he was on his feet and running out the door before she could make another mark.

Erin let her head fall back against the wall, closing her eyes and steadying her breathing. She lifted her hand tentatively to her neck and rubbed the swollen area where his hands had held her down in place. They would bruise. Battle marks. She forced herself out of her catatonic position and crawled across the small floor space to Sasha's unconscious body. She hastily checked for breathing, relieved when she found a pulse. Erin unzipped her backpack and tugged out her flannel shirt, using it to wipe away the blood from Sasha's head and clot the wound. She didn't know how long it took before Sasha stirred. 

As they both sat there in sheer shock over what had happened, the door to the warehouse bust open and Daryl stormed in first. The others were close behind, including the other two officers, both as confused as everyone else. Rick entered last, looking dishevelled as he ran a hand through his hair. Tyreese ran to his sister, aiding her, and Noah moved to help Erin up to her feet. Daryl's eyes narrowed when he saw the purplish marks on Erin's neck. She swallowed nervously under his stare.

"Lamson is dead," Rick announced. "I saw him running. He wouldn't stop, so I had no choice but to run him over."

Sasha muttered something that sounded like 'good'. The group members looked Sasha and Erin over, but they both shrugged off their injuries as nothing, explaining what had happened. Shepherd cursed, fretting that the death of Lamson would somehow effect the hostage trade deal. They offered to tell Dawn that Lamson had been killed by a Walker. That would be the smartest thing to tell her. Rick nodded in agreement.

"You okay?" Daryl asked Erin, speaking up for the first time since he had entered the warehouse.

"Fine." She answered bluntly. "Just fine. Come on. We need to get this trade out of the way."

Daryl stared at her retreating back, her cold tone echoing in his ears. She had come so close to being killed, and he hadn't been there to stop it, as he'd told himself that he would be just the day before. He groaned to himself. How could he protect her when she was going out of the way to protect herself? He sighed to himself before going to follow her out of the warehouse to continue doing what they had to do. She was a fighter, he would give her that.


	11. Blame

The gunshot rang loud and clear as the girl's body dropped to the floor, along with the other. Erin had not even met the girl. Today had been the first time she'd even seen Beth. Her eyes widened at the sight before her. On auto-pilot mode, she mimicked the actions of the group around her and lifted her gun to aim it at one of the police officers. Beth had been murdered by Dawn in cold blood. A choking sensation settled in the base of Erin's throat. Just like that, a bullet had shot through her brain. Almost instantly, Daryl had shot Dawn in the same manner. Erin had flinched as the second shot sounded, but quickly readied herself for anymore surprise bullets. This wasn't supposed to happen.

"Stop, stop!" Shepherd dived betwen the two groups. "Stop! She's dead now. We don't... we don't have to do this."

Beth's body lay curled up on the floor of the hospital. Noah was shell-shocked, gaping at the two women at his feet. Slowly, Rick nodded and signalled for his group to lower their guns once the officers had. Erin shoved her gun into its holster, releasing it eagerly so that she could try to steady her trembling hands. She winced when she heard a strangled sob come from Daryl, standing all but two feet away from her. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Daryl and Beth had been close. They'd been together just before she went missing. Daryl had promised Maggie that he was going to find her sister and bring her back to the group. Erin thought back to the story Glenn had told her all those weeks ago, about how Daryl had blamed himself when the little girl on the farm turned up as a Walker, rather than alive. He was blaming himself again.

The groups went their two separate ways. Daryl bent down, scooping up Beth's body in his arms and proceeding to carry her from the hospital, the place of her demise. Even though Erin had only heard stories about the young girl, her heart clenched in her chest and she felt tears prick at her eyes. How could this have happened? She knew enough about Beth to know that she was wholly innocent and that she didn't deserve this. Nobody deserved this.

As they made it outside, the sun beamed down on the group. Erin turned her head up to the sky, bathing her face in the heat. The weather did not much match their grey moods. All she could hear was the sound of Daryl's sobs. It broke her heart even more. For the short time she had known the tough man, she'd never seen him showcase that much emotion. Every now and then he would soften up, but very rarely around her. This was the first time she'd seen true emotion spill from his very being. There had been a time where Erin thought Daryl was just a statue of a man. Now, she knew differently. As they stepped further outside, Erin heard the sound of an engine. She lifted her hand to wipe away a stray tear from her cheek. Rick had contacted the other half of the group. And at the worst possible time, the bus that Abraham was conducting rolled into the parking lot of the hospital. Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Tara, Glenn and Maggie all tumbled out. When Maggie realised that it was Beth hanging limply from Daryl's arms, Erin squeezed her eyes shut and turned away.

*

"You don't need to lecture me." Erin jogged up the steps of the church, Abraham close behind. "I know I was stupid and careless by going out on my own. But that's long in the past now."

"I didn't even know if you were alive or not."

Abraham frowned at how easily Erin shrugged off everything that she'd been through since they'd been apart. Sasha had told him about the ordeal in the warehouse, where both she and Erin had been injured. On the drive back to the church, Abraham had noticed Erin constantly rubbing at her neck. She'd never been that close to the hands of death before. He narrowed his eyes when he saw the bruising that was already forming on her neck. How could she be so reckless? He glanced over his shoulder to see that Father Gabriel was saying a prayer over the mound of dirt that the group had buried Beth beneath. Erin had had to watch that firsthand. He wondered when she was going to reach her breaking point. It seemed long overdue.

"At least now we can all go to Washington together," Erin shrugged, throwing a few loose items of clothing into her backpack.

She zipped up the bulging bag and chucked it on one of the remaining pews that hadn't been hacked to pieces for defenses or firewood. Abraham sighed. She was becoming the shell of the person she once was. That happened to a lot of people in this new world, but those people were people like Gareth and The Governor, who RIck had told him about before his departure. They weren't people like Erin.

That night, they huddled round a campfire. Erin's gaze continuously flickered to Daryl who sat opposite her. He had got over the initial shock of Beth's death. Now, he was dry eyed, although she could see the bloodshot whites that gave away that he'd been crying. Erin then looked to Carol, who they had rescued from the hospital, and also Noah, who they managed to keep ahold of rather than handing him back over to the officers. Maggie was still sobbing quietly a little way away from the rest of the group, Glenn's arms wrapped protectively around her as he whispered sweet nothings in her ear. She hadn't long lost her father, and now her sister too. Erin sighed. She knew what that was like. She knew how much that hurt. To feel like you had nobody left, even when you were surrounded by people.

"Beth was great." Noah was saying, a smile on his face as he reminisced about the young blonde. "We had plans when we both got out of that hell hole together. We were gonna go to Virginia... Richmond. Where my community was. Last I saw, my mother and my brothers were still alive there. Beth was going to take me back to them."

Rick looked thoughtful as he mulled over Beth's last wish in Noah's words. Erin ran a hand down her tired face. She already knew the drill that was coming. They were going to go to Virginia, they were going to reunite Noah with his family, if they were still alive, and then they were going to move on to D.C. For once and for all. Erin was growing tired of constantly moving around, constantly having a new issue on her mind. It wasn't working out well for the group so far, so who was to say that it would change? She shrugged off her mournful thoughts and pushed herself up from the log she was perched on, bidding the rest of the gathered group a goodnight. They all murmured responses as Erin was the first one to head back inside the church. She shut the door gently behind her, as she knew Judith would be asleep, tucked away in the private room that was once Father Gabriel's office. 

It was dark in the church. One candle was lit at the front of the room. Erin slowly crept across the floorboards and up onto the carpeted platform, slipping into the separate room. Baby Judith lay in a bundle of spare clothes, a makeshift bed for her. She was still awake, her little fists clenched and her wide eyes alert as they landed on Erin's face, a short gurgle escaping her pink lips. Erin had never really taken to babies much. As a teacher, she had loved working with children. She believed it was her life's mission to educate and to teach. Yet, babies had never really been her thing. She was never any good with them. But, for some reason, she found herself kneeling down to scoop up little Judith into her arms. She cooed at the baby, rocking her gently back and forth as she raised to her feet, bouncing the baby to keep her quiet in the stillness of the silent church. Judith just watched her carefully, her small hand reaching out to hold onto a loose strand of Erin's hair. She was so absorbed with the baby that she didn't even realise another presence in the room with her, until the door creaked shut behind them.

"Sorry." Daryl apologised quietly as Erin's head whipped round in surprise.

She spared him a small smile as he moved into the room, sitting on a piano stool that had been spared and wringing his hands. Erin couldn't even begin to imagine how he was feeling. He'd been pretty much silent since they had returned. She looked at his red eyes as he glanced up at her holding the baby. She offered Judith to him.

"Nah," He shook his head. "You keep her. Lil' Ass Kicker seems to like you."

"That's what you call her?" Erin asked with a raised eyebrow. 

Daryl just gave a short laugh that held no meaning behind it. Erin sighed, but she didn't blame him. She moved over to the window and looked out between the boarded up view, Judith balanced on her hip. The rest of the group would all start to head in soon. It was growing darker by the minute and they all knew it wasn't safe to have a full blown campfire in the middle of the woods at this time. Erin crossed the room quietly and laid Judith back down in the mound of clothes, tucking them around her so that she would be warm and comfortable in the chilly back room of the church. When she stood up again, Daryl did too. She looked at him curiously as they came inches away from each other.

"I'm really sorry about Beth," Erin breathed out finally. "It was a horrible way for her to go, and I know how hard you looked for her. But, please... don't blame yourself for it. It wasn't your fault. These things happen. They're awful, horrible things, but... they have to happen. You can't blame yourself."

Erin held her breath as Daryl's gaze raked her over. His eyes landed on the bruised handmarks on her neck. He cussed under his breath. How could the damned woman act as if everything was fine? As if she hadn't come close to her life being taken from her just earlier that day? How could she tell him that he wasn't to blame for all that was happening? It was his fault that Beth was dead and it was his fault that Erin hadn't been far behind. 

"I can blame myself," Daryl looked away from her. "If I'd never left her in the first place, she wouldn't 'ave been taken. An' if I'd never left the warehouse in the first place, you wouldn't 'ave been strangled half to death."

"What?" Erin looked at him in shock. "You're going to blame yourself for what happened to me as well? That's not on your head, Daryl. That could have happened to anyone. Sasha was worse off than I was back there. It wasn't your responsibility to hang around and check out that our hostage wasn't going to break any rules. I'm still alive, aren't I?"

"But you coulda been killed. That's on me."

Erin laughed, void of emotion, and shook her head in disbelief. Her hand lifted and she ran her fingers tentatively over the bruises. Yes, she'd wished in that moment that Daryl was there to fight off her enemies for her, but she hadn't blamed him for one second for not being there. He had turned away from her now, and was now looking out of the window she had just stood in front of minutes before. Moonlight shone through the visible window and illuminated shadows across the carpeted floor. He was in a world of his own now. Erin bit her lower lip nervously as she watched his brooding frame, hunched and outcast from the rest of the world. He was carrying a heavy burden of blame. 

"I'm sorry," His voice cracked as he spoke up again.

Part of Erin wanted to rush to his side and envelop him in a hug, whispering that everything was going to be okay and that he didn't need to worry. Another part of her wanted to slap him round the upside of the head and tell him to stop being so stupid. Instead, she stood still and quiet as a mouse, waiting for him to do or say something first. She didn't know how to handle emotional situations like this very well. She didn't know what to say to a grown man who was feeling this way. She didn't know how to comfort him over the death of Beth, or reassure him that it wasn't and never would be his fault. There was no way forward for them from this point. After a few silent minutes, Daryl turned away from the window, furiously wiping at a stray tear. He looked at Erin as she stood basked in the moonlight. Her skin was ghostly pale and her dark hair hung half out of its messy ponytail, her eyes shining in understanding. Something about her took the edge off. She had a calming presence. Soothing, almost. He wanted to reach out and cup her cheek and tell her that he was going to be there next time and that he was going to make sure nothing like this ever happened to her again. But, he couldn't. 

"We should go back," Erin nodded her head at the door. "Before the others come back in. You need to get some sleep, Daryl. Life keeps on moving. Can't get caught behind."

"When did you get so wise?" He asked in an almost joking tone as they both stepped through the door and out into the main room of the church.

Erin shot him a wry grin, lifting one shoulder up in a shrug before letting it drop heavily. She shut the door to Gabriel's office gently behind her so she wouldn't wake a now sleeping Judith. Both sets of their footsteps echoed as they made their way over to their respective corners of the church. Erin slept on one side, Daryl on the other. Completely separate from each other. Erin curled up on her side in a ball, her denim jacket covering her as a makeshift blanket to protect her from the cold. The church was quiet enough with just the two of them in the room that she could hear Daryl's every shaking breath. Then, another sob. He was beginning to cry again. Erin sighed with sorrow for him. She knew this feeling. Whenever you thought you were over something, the emotions suddenly came flooding back to you when you were alone in the night. She had cried herself to sleep over many things in her years. Daryl's soft sobs broke her heart. 

Impulsively, she made the decision to stand up and go to him. Her denim jacket dropped to the floor and she moved swiftly across the room to where Daryl had set up his sleeping area. He lay with one arm covering his face so that she couldn't see his tears. She could just hear him, and see the trembling of his body. His other arm lay across his stomach. Gently, Erin knelt down beside his body. He didn't move his arm to look at her. He already knew that she was there and that she was trying to offer her comfort. No matter how hard he tried, Daryl couldn't stop the tears from coming. 

He felt Erin's body heat radiating as she knelt closer to him. He thought she was going to reach over to whisper something in his ear. But, he was surprised when he suddenly felt a weight on his chest. He lifted the arm covering his face ever so slightly to see Erin's small frame laying on the floor next to him. Her head was resting on his chest, lifting up and down with every shaking breath that he took. His sobs stilled as she reached a hand over and ran it up and down comfortingly over his arm that covered his stomach. This was the first time in his life he had ever laid with a woman in this manner. He was uncomfortable at first. He didn't know how to react. He could tell that she was no different. But, after a while, he grew used to the sensation of her soft skin on his and eventually, he drifted off to a dreamless sleep, protected by her warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos! I really hope you enjoy this chapter. x


	12. Richmond

"So, you're saying that you didn't do any-"

"No." Erin cut Rosita off mid sentence. "No, nothing happened."

A blush burned on Erin's cheeks at the memory of what Rosita was talking about. Last night, she had drifted off to sleep with her head on Daryl's chest, tucked beneath his chin. Neither of them had even realised that they'd spent the whole night that way. Of course, everybody had seen them lay together. Much to Erin's relief though, they hadn't woken together. Daryl was long gone. He had gone out hunting early that morning. Erin had stirred in her sleep and realised that she'd been left in the exact same position as when she fell asleep, just minus Daryl Dixon as a pillow. 

"Why were you guys even like that?" Rosita asked. "I didn't know the two of you were that close. Sure, you talk to Dixon way more than me, Abraham or Eugene do, but I didn't realise you were at the stage where he was letting you cuddle up to him. He doesn't seem like the cuddling type."

"You're making it sound like a romantic gesture," Erin rolled her eyes. "It wasn't. It was just... Reassurance. He was crying over Beth last night, so I went to comfort him. I guess it just kind of ended up like that. It doesn't mean anything."

Rosita raised her eyebrows in disbelief but nodded her head anyway. She knew that Erin would deny it till her death. The two of them were loading up on supplies for the day ahead of them. The group were heading out to Richmond, to find Noah's community. Hopefully, if it was safe enough, they would be able to move everything out there and have a bit more space to coincide. 

Erin hadn't seen Daryl since the previous night. She was growing concerned that maybe what she had seen as a friendly gesture last night, had been seen as something more by him on her part, and she had scared him off. She hoped he hadn't. He was nowhere near close to opening up to her, but that was as good as she was going to get, and she knew it. And that was enough. She liked helping people feel better about themselves. She had thought that she made Daryl feel better about himself. He hadn't pushed her away when she'd come closer. That was a start.

She glanced up as Rick strolled over to the two women. He had a grim face as he glanced at all they were packing. Every time they ventured outside of these walls, they needed a full on survival kit in the off chance that anything happened. Rick looked at the half empty first aid kit propped open in Erin's hands.

"I didn't know you had that," He said.

"Found it a while back," She shrugged. "Thought it would come in handy. It's not much, but it's something."

"Are you medically qualified? Bob... he was a medic. And Beth knew a few bits from her father. Without them, most of our medical training has gone too."

"Heck, I wish I was as good as they probably were. I know enough. I was a teacher before all of this, and we had to all attend first aid courses and the likes. I can't perform miracles, but I can... I don't know. I can do something."

Rick nodded. He looked relieved at her words. In all truth, he had been hanging onto the last threads in many aspects of their survival group. It was nice to know that there was still hope and positivity running through, despite the deaths their group had only just faced. Rick regarded Erin as she shut the first aid kit, shoving it into her backpack. A loose strand of hair fell from her ponytail into her face and she huffed it out of the way, but it fell back again. When he had spoken to Daryl about all new members of their group, he had seemed so unsure of Erin. So reluctant to accept her for what she could do. Yet, last night, when he had entered the church, he had seen them together. It was nothing overly intimate, but it was more affection than Daryl had displayed in a long time. Rick rarely saw the man break, but he had sobbed true tears over Beth, and then he had held Erin in her sleep. Only weeks away from him, and he seemed a changed man.

The plan was to take two cars to Richmond. Erin hopped down the steps of the church, heading over to one of the cars and swinging her bag into the boot. As she was checking that she had everything securely placed away, the sound of a throat being cleared sounded from behind her. She didn't need to look up to recognise the gruff tone. Instantly, she felt an awkward air settle over her. She didn't want to turn and look Daryl in the eye. She busied herself with checking her backpack as Daryl stood uncomfortably behind her, shifting from foot to foot with his crossbow hanging from his hand.

"You better load up if you're coming," She said, still not looking at him as she shut the boot of the car.

Daryl narrowed his eyes. Why did women have to be so difficult? She turned on her heel and started off towards the church. He hurried to stalk after her, reaching out and grabbing her wrist and tugging her round to face him before she got inside with the others, where he wouldn't be able to talk to her at all. 

"I jus' wanted to say thanks..." He mumbled. 

"Thanks?" She repeated with an incredulous stare.

"Yeah, thanks. For, um, yesterday. I was feelin' pretty shitty, an' you, uh, helped out... So, thanks."

Erin smiled slightly but quickly shook it off. It was just a friendly gesture in return of a friendly gesture. That was all there was to it. Daryl scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he avoided eye contact with the dainty woman. He had woken up early that morning with her head rising and falling on his chest. For a while, he hadn't wanted to move as dawn broke. He'd felt almost comfortable. With all the women he'd been with, he'd never woken up with any of them like that. Besides, the women he'd normally be with tended to be half undressed all the time and Merle had usually had them before he did. Erin was different. Very different to every woman he'd laid with before. And he hadn't even had sex with her. But, when he woke up, he'd wanted to stay in that position for a while. Her breaths were soft in her sleep and her hands curled up into little fists, one bunching up the material of his shirt as she clutched to it. Reluctantly, he'd eased her off of him and set her back down gently. He knew that it wouldn't help either of them if they woke up together that way. So, he left her.

"It's no problem," She shrugged. "You've been through a real rough time. If you ever need a helping hand, I'm here. Not that you have to take me up on that offer - just... just if you want to, you know?"

Daryl grinned at her stuttered words. She was just as awkward as he was in this situation. Clearly they had more similarities than he'd first thought. He tilted his head in the direction of the cars and then looked back at her again.

"You sure you need to go on this run?" He asked.

"Oh God, don't coddle me," She started heading inside the church. "I'm going on the run and nothing you say is gonna change that. Now, either hurry up and pack up your things, or you stay behind and play house with Father Gabriel."

With that, she jogged up the steps and disappeared inside. Daryl grinned and shook his head to himself. She really was a force to be reckoned with.

*

Erin felt freedom as she drove the car. She followed the SUV Rick was driving in front of her to Richmond. Apart from Gabriel, Eugene, Carl and Judith, all of them were heading out to Richmond. Erin's car hosted Abraham, Rosita, Sasha and Carol. The others were all with Rick. Erin hummed to herself as she tampered with the radio as they drove along in what was otherwise silence. Abraham sat in the passenger seat. When they had been their original group of four, Abraham had always been the one to drive. But, he'd stepped back and let Erin take the wheel this time. He could tell that she needed to feel the relaxation of doing something normal.

"I still can't believe you knocked Eugene out cold," Erin said as she made a wide left turn.

Abraham had told her about what had happened, when he took the bus with the others to begin the journey to D.C. Eugene had admitted to all of them that he didn't know the cure. He had no clue what he was doing and he had been using them for protection this whole time. Erin had known it for a while, but this had confirmed it. She couldn't blame Eugene for it, though. You did what you had to do to survive now. He'd just done what any of them would have. Instead of using the brawn that they all had, he used his brains. 

"He deserved it," Abraham muttered.

"Don't say that," Erin tutted. "He didn't mean any harm by it. Besides, the motive of it kept our group going all this time, didn't it? Even if it was false. If we hadn't been making our way to D.C., we would have never bumped into Glenn or Tara, and we would have never been here with all these people today either."

"Maybe that would have been a good thing."

Erin shot her oldest companion a confused look. The three women in the back didn't say anything, but Erin knew that they were listening to every word of their conversation. What else was there to listen to?

"What do you mean?" She asked cautiously.

"I can't tell whether being in this group has been good or bad," Abraham sulked. "Terminus, Bob, the hospital, Beth, Eugene owning up... It's tragedy after tragedy."

He sighed. Erin shot him a look out of the corner of her eye, turning her attention back to the road, even though she knew her old driving skills didn't need to apply as much as they once had. Abraham wasn't wrong. Many things had gone wrong since becoming apart of this group. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that Rosita, Sasha and Carol's faces were unreadable. They were probably all thinking something along the same lines. It wasn't as if the idea was that far fetched.

Rick pulled the SUV to park in the woods nearby Noah's old community. Erin pulled up behind him and the group all piled out of their cars. Erin glanced to the fenced in community. It looked like it could be somewhere safe. She retrieved her bag from the boot of the car, swinging it over both shoulders as Rick, Glenn and Noah went to check over the fences and see if there were any immediate threats that needed seeing to before the rest of the group followed on. Abraham stood beside Erin, glancing between her and Daryl for a few moments as they stood at opposite ends of the group. He wondered if Erin thought that he hadn't noticed the two of them. After all, he had chosen not to make a comment on anything. He'd warned her off of him, but she apparently had devised selective hearing for herself.

Abraham liked Daryl. He did. But, he felt almost protective over Erin. She was like a daughter to him. He felt like he knew her better than anyone else in this group, and in that sense, he knew what was right and what was wrong for her. And right now? Daryl Dixon was wrong for her. She didn't need a rough and tumble woodsman to devote her time to. She needed to focus on protecting herself and not wait around all day on someone who didn't have much care for his own safety when he came barging into any situation without much thought beforehand. Erin needed someone sensible. Abraham scoffed to himself. Since when did he care so much about Erin? Rosita was younger than she was, and he was having a grand old time with her. Erin could do whatever she damn well pleased.

The group watched as Noah dropped to his knees, crying. A sigh fluttered around them. The community was obviously no longer a community. There were no surprises there, even though Erin had been hoping in the back of her mind that there was just a slither of hope for them all. The group headed over to join the others at the fence, weapons ready for any Walkers that stumbled into their line of sight. Rick stood with his hands on his hips.

"We should go in and check the houses," He said. "See if there's anything useful in their we can use. It's a whole neighbourhood, so between the lot of us we should be able to get it all covered."

"And then what?" Michonne gave him a look.

Erin looked on at Noah with sympathy. He was now drying his eyes, sniffing still. She knew heartache, but she didn't know his type. He had no idea what had happened to his family in there. He was an outsider and he didn't know whether to mourn or grieve or to carry on the search. Erin hitched her backpack up higher as she looked the young man up and down again. The first time she had met him, he had pointed a gun at her face and had only lowered it when Daryl had warned him off of her. Since then, she had grown to find him sweet and charming.

"I'll come with you to your house, Noah," She spoke up. "Maybe your family holed themselves up in there. We'll go check there first."

"Really?" Noah sniffed as he looked at her.

"Sure. The others can keep an eye out at the other houses."

"I'll go with the two of them," Tyreese offered as Rick gave Erin a concerned look after her suggestion.

Hesitantly, their leader agreed. He wanted to give Noah the best chance he could in finding his family. Everyone deserved that chance. The group piled through the fence and into the small community, all going their separate ways. Erin, Tyreese and Noah walked slowly together under the vicious sun. Erin shielded her eyes from it as she watched Noah stare at all the dead bodies that littered the streets of his once happy home.

"It's probably better if you don't look," Tyreese said.

Noah didn't say anything. Erin could tell that he wasn't thinking straight. There was no way anybody could keep a calm head after finding out something like this, after finding out something that personally affected them. 

"This isn't the end," Tyreese attempted to console the younger man.

With that, Noah broke off at a run. Erin and Tyreese exchanged worried glances. Although there were no immediate threats as far as the eye could see, there could be many hidden away inside the houses. Noah was capable, but he didn't have his usual mindset. He would panic and something bad could happen. Both Erin and Tyreese jogged after him, panting as they followed him at a sprint all the way to what once had been his house. When they reached the opened front door, which Noah had entered just minutes before, they both stopped for a second to catch their breaths. Erin wiped away the layer of sweat on her forehead.

"I'll try and talk some sense into him," Tyreese made to go into the house.

"Don't," Erin shook her head. "Just let him be. Stand back and let him see all this and take it all in. He needs to know that this is what life is now."

Tyreese paused for a moment but then he nodded. He knew the younger woman was right. Noah needed to learn that this sort of thing happened every day, every hour. It didn't mean that the world stopped spinning and that you had to lay down your weapons and stop fighting. It meant that you had to pick them up and fight some more. 

The two of them entered through the doorway of Noah's house and were confronted with Noah kneeling beside a charred body. Erin guessed that it must have been his mother. She knew that he had twin brothers too, so she lifted her gun from its holster and held her hunting knife in the other hand, preparing herself for a Walker to jump out on her. She didn't want Noah to have to witness her stabbing his brothers through the head, but she had to protect her own first and foremost. She hoped that all the others were okay. 

Tyreese's eyes glistened with sadness as he looked Noah over. He motioned to the stairs, muttering to Erin that he was going to go up and check all the other rooms. Erin nodded and did a quick sweep of the downstairs. Finding a few tins of canned food in the small kitchenette, she shoved them into her already heavy bag. She felt disrespectful taking things from Noah's family home, but she kept in mind that this was no longer his home. Now, it was just a house. When she went back into the living room, Noah was still hunched over the body. 

"Come on," She said softly.

Noah stared sightlessly at her for a few minutes but soon nodded, getting to his feet and making his way to the stairs. As Erin was about to follow him up, she heard a throaty scream that sounded like Tyreese. Her eyes widened and she rushed up the steps two at a time after Noah. He went through the door to the bedroom first, gaping at the sight. Erin hurried in behind him to see him stab one of his brothers through the eye. He then turned, and with one last wide eyed look, he ran. Erin stared at Tyreese, turning paler by the second.

He had been bit. The wound on his arm was creating steady bloodflow. She gaped her mouth open and shut like a fish out of water for a second before her brain snapped into her survival instinct mode. Tyreese's face was the image of shock as she forced him to sit on the bed, rooting recklessly through her bag to seize the first aid kit. She grabbed his arm and tied a wad of gauze round where joint met joint to create a messy torniquet. Then, her now bloody hands, rummaged back inside her backpack to find the machete that she had tucked at the bottom. Tyreese stared at Erin with wide eyes, shaking his head desperately.

"Shh, shh," Erin held the handle of the machete. "Noah's gone to get help, okay? Just... stay still. I need to stop the infection spreading."

Tyreese was speechless. Erin wanted to heave at the sight of his arm, but she knew she had to be strong. She'd never hacked anyone's limb off before. It had never come to that. She squeezed her eyes shut for the briefest of moments. The second they were open, she swung the machete down relentlessly on Tyreese's arm. The blunt blade took a couple of swings to completely severe the limb. Erin stepped back as his arm dropped to the floor. Blood poured relentlessly from Tyreese's wound. He hadn't even screamed out in pain. Shock had overridden his system. Her top was soaked through with blood as she shrugged off her jacket, quickly shoving it against Tyreese's stump to put a halt to the bleeding. The door behind her swung open and Noah returned with Rick, Michonne and Glenn.

The rest of the group had returned to the cars. Rick spoke to Carol over the walkie talkie, telling her that she needed to be ready to cauterize Tyreese's wound. Erin was shocked herself as the group hurried with Tyreese out of the community, wiping her hands down her jeans to rid herself of Tyreese's blood. Her eyes were wide and panicked as they met with the rest of the group. They were ushered into cars, and the drive began immediately.

But when it was too late, and they stopped at the side of the road to end his pain and hallucinations, it was Daryl who stiffly placed his arm around her shoulder and rubbed her arm in reassurance, the exact way she had done for him last night. He had returned the favour.


	13. AUTHORS NOTE

Hi all,

Super sorry if you thought this was a chapter update! I know I haven't updated in a long time, and I do apologise for that, but... things are changing. 

If you guys didn't already know from previous mentions, I'm a literature student at university, and the last few months for me have been jam packed with essays, reading, critical reading and exams. It's been exhausting and I've been very busy balancing it alongside working. I didn't have much time for this story. 

However, the second half of the new season came back and then - I attended Walker Stalker Con London yesterday!

I went last year and met Norman Reedus and it was a great experience so I saved up so I could go again this weekend and have an even better time. It was amazing. I got to meet Chandler Riggs, Michael Cudlitz, Josh McDermitt, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Freddie Highmore (non TWD related but still), Ross Marquand and Austin Amilio, as well as seeing panels and the such. It was a brilliant day and it really inspired me to get back into writing this and being completely TWD revolved in life. 

I am sorry for the extended break I took, but I hope you guys understand. Thank you for all those who read and Kudos'd in the time I was absent and massive thank you for the comments I received, including the ones asking me to continue to write this! Those comments really make a fanfiction writer happy. 

I hope to have a new chapter uploaded to this either later tonight or tomorrow. Stick with me. 

Thank you again. You're the best.


	14. Them

Erin waited at the side of the road, examining the map that was unfolded between her dirt stained hands. They'd been on the road for the last few days in their attempts to travel to Washington and for the last day and a half, they'd had no access to food or water. Everyone was exhausted, hungry and becoming critical in their conditions of not being able to move forward from Point A to Point B. After the whole ordeal with Beth and with Tyreese, Erin wasn't sure she wanted to move past it.

Her heart ached thinking about how Maggie and Sasha were coping, both losing a sibling. Their only surviving family member left. Yes, Erin knew what it was like to have no relatives as they'd all been lost to this world, but every death was different. No death was handled in the same way. No person handled mourning the same. Erin had to admit that Maggie and Sasha were both handling it better than she had expected them to. She glanced up at Sasha who was searching a dry creek bed for any water that they might have been able to bottle up and share around. It looked like she was having no luck at all.

"Route figured out yet?" Abraham asked as he approached Erin.

Sometimes he felt like he had no idea how to address her or what to say to her. Especially after what she had just been through. He didn't want to put his foot in his mouth and say something that he would regret, but at the same time he didn't want to dance around on his tiptoes hoping that it would make things better. Both parties knew that it wouldn't.

"Whatever route we take, we're looking at the same time spent travelling," Erin shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

It was the carelessness of her attitude that worried Abraham. That sort of attitude ended up killing people. He nodded and allowed her to go back to studying the roads and the markings on the map, as if anything might have changed since she last looked at it. Her mind right now was occupied with anything but the thought of travelling to Washington. She wasn't sure why they were even still bothering with the idea of it. She thought that after what had happened with Eugene, they would all just agree to call it a day and find some other false hope to set their sights on. Apparently that was not the case. Everyone still seemed dedicated in the travel to D.C. Erin hoped that it was worth it. She wasn't sure she could cope if they were met with another dead end to push them back.

Instead, her thoughts were occupied with the people in her group. A certain person in particular. Daryl Dixon. Over the last few days of travelling on foot, she had found that he seemed to be looking out for her more and more. She wasn't sure if it was just a figment of her imagination, which seemed more plausible, but she had noticed the way that he'd been paying extra attention to every little thing that she did. If she slipped and lost her footing on a bit of wet bark on a wood trail, Daryl would be the first person next to her to reach out and catch her elbow to steady her and tell her gruffly to carry on moving once he had checked her over. If Erin were to feel ill from the heat and have to sit out for a couple of minutes, Daryl would be the one standing protectively over her and shielding her from the sun while telling the rest of the group to carry on moving, that he would be along with Erin in a few minutes. That he would wait with her until she was okay to continue. 

Erin folded up the map and shoved it into the back pocket of her jeans as Sasha and Maggie wandered back up from the creek bed. They all shared small smiles that didn't quite reach their eyes. But then, what was to be expected? They had gone through more than was humanly possible in the last few days. 

"How much longer we got?" Maggie asked, nodding at the pocketed map.

"Around sixty miles," Erin shrugged.

"I wasn't talkin' about Washington."

Concern riddled Erin's features as Maggie brushed past her, making her way over to the comfort of Glenn. Sasha gave Erin a slight shrug. There seemed to be a lot of that type of communicating within the group these days - shrugs and mumbles and raised eyebrows. Barely any words and reassurances were exchanged between them anymore. It just seemed like it was too late for any of that. 

Rick was chatting to Daryl and Abraham as Erin approached the majority of the group. They were talking about trying to find more fuel and a car, as their own cars had run out of gas a while back and they still had quite the journey to go. But, from the looks of it, the area they were in now seemed to be next to deserted, spare the odd Walker that stumbled out of the treeline and towards the huddled group every now and again. Erin came to a halt beside Abraham, chewing on her thumbnail. Daryl looked up at her as she approached, noticing out put out she looked. Her eyes were tired, laced with dark circles beneath them that made the grey look darker than they really were.

"Is everyone ready to carry on moving?" Rick asked Erin.

"Ready as they'll ever be," Erin replied wryly. "I don't know about Maggie. She's not holding up well. Maybe we just need to stop for a while, take a breather."

Rick nodded slowly. He knew that Erin was probably right, but he also knew that there was probably more danger in resting up in such a condensed area like this. The group that surrounded him were exhausted. They looked like they couldn't go another minute, yet they were all determined to do so. Most of them had reached the point now where their stomachs didn't even grumble anymore in hunger - they knew that there was nothing more left for them.

In the end, the group continued to move. They agreed to finally rest up in a clearer area, after eliminating a small herd of Walkers that had been following after them. Erin had noticed that they were now all walking no differently than the Walkers themselves. Her life had come to a point where it wasn't a life anymore. She was just a body trying to outrun lesser bodies. She cursed herself as she once again found herself questioning the point of carrying on anymore.

"You okay?" Rosita asked as they quietly set up camp together on the side of the road. "You've been a little... withdrawn."

"I'm fine." Erin adamantly shook her head. "Fine." She wondered if she would ever be able to fully get rid of Tyreese's blood that stained her jeans and top.

As night fell, the group sat tightly together. Just an hour or so before, Daryl and Carol had announced that they were going off in search of food and water. Erin had felt instantly bitter at the idea of the two of them being together, but had put it down to her just being cranky and tired. She liked Carol. Carol was soft and kind and selfless and everything that Erin wished she could be more like. In fact, she wouldn't even have been confused if Daryl wanted to spend more time with her than he did with Erin. At least with Carol, affection came easily. Erin found herself struggling to show it. She knew that Daryl also found it difficult, but at least he tried with the small things. At least he checked in on her and made it seem like he cared. Erin was just a blank face with a blanker heart.

"We're gonna push forward in the early hours," Rick announced to the remaining group. "Try to get as far forward as possible. We want to cover as much of this sixty miles as we can within the shortest period of time we have available to us."

"We might as well just carry on now," Sasha muttered.

"We still have to put everyone's safety first. Even if it would be easier to just move on. We can't risk any life."

"Like we've risked everyone else's lives so far? So recklessly? Like everyone else has died for us? For us to be able to do what exactly? Sit here and bitch and moan about how we can't cope with the idea of pushing another five miles tonight."

Silence fell over the group. Tensions were higher than ever. Erin knew that Sasha was angry about Tyreese and she knew that Tyreese's death should never have happened, but at the same time, she knew that everyone had to accept that these things did happen, whether they were right or not. Max's death wasn't supposed to happen in the way it did, but it happened and there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't dwell on the past as she couldn't change it.

When morning rolled around, and Carol and Daryl were still absent in their search, the rest of the group decided to continue. Erin brought up the back with Glenn and Carl, mumbling in agreement to their limited conversation so as to seem that she was fully invested in everything the group was doing. Really, she just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep for as long as she possibly could. Sleep only came in bursts of two or three hours every now and then. She hoped this type of living would end soon. Suddenly, Maggie's comment didn't seem so depressive and out of the blue now - it made perfect sense. 

"There're a lot of Walkers over that ravine," Rick said as they came to another stop. "We need to take them down before we cross. Gradually. We'll split into two groups. Keep one group here and the other group will go across and sort out the problem before we carry on. Got it? Sasha, Abraham, Michonne, Erin."

The plan was to reach the overpass and push the Walkers down the steep ravines to move them out of the way that they had blocked. A simple enough plan, where seemingly not much would possibly be able to go wrong. Erin pulled out her hunting knife from her sock and twisted it between her fingers a couple of times as she eyed the herds of Walkers on either side of the group that had stepped forward to deal with the issue at hand. She glanced to her left to see Sasha's angry, tense stance. Fury practically radiated off of her as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. Erin wasn't sure she had seen such anger in a long time. There wasn't time for anger now. 

Rick began the procession of luring the Walkers to the ravine. Erin walked backwards, taking slow and steady steps and making sure that her feet were firmly on the ground before she moved back any further. It wouldn't do to suddenly trip and end up down in the ravine with dozens of hungry Walkers. Just as Erin was thinking about how much easier it was to handle threats in this calm and collected way, her eyes were distracted over to a sudden surge of quicker moving Walkers. Sasha, in all of her anger, had pulled her knife and was lunging at the Walkers and fighting them head on. It left no choice for the rest of the group but to move to help her fight off the Walkers, rather than continue to lure them further to the ravine.

Erin felt the usual spike of her adrenaline as the hasty movements started in the group. She kept her eyes trained on everything around her, making sure that everyone was okay at the same time as making sure she didn't end up as Walker bait herself. Her eyes caught sight of Michonne having to duck as Sasha wildly swung her knife around. The said knife caught Abraham's arm and cut it just a few seconds later. Rick was caught in a close struggle with a Walker, but Erin was too far from him to suddenly push through the small crowd that she had on her hands and make it to his side. She willed Abraham or Michonne to notice what she had seen. Her constant stepping back meant that she was now dangerously close to the edge of the ravine and she could feel the ground crumbling beneath her boots as the ground grew thinner. 

Her knife hand was constantly moving as she lifted it to plunge through Walker skull after Walker skull before grabbing onto one of their limbs and shoving them past her and down the ravine. She still had about five more to go when Carol and Daryl returned to the group. Daryl sorted out Rick before he came close to being bitten before he was furiously stalking closer to Erin's situation, his crossbow lifting and shooting bolts before she could say anything. His hand was suddenly wrapped around her upper arm and he yanked her closer to his body. She slammed into his chest, dropping her knife to the ground as her hand came to rest against him. She could feel his warm breath on his face and his hand was still clutched tightly around her arm.

"Look at tha'," He demanded, spinning her round to look at the edge of the ravine. "Look how close ya were."

He was right. She'd been a step away from surely tumbling down to her demise. She swallowed nervously but decided not to comment on it. She found herself wondering yet again what would have happened if Daryl hadn't shown up in time. It didn't matter. He'd been too busy with Carol anyway.

"I need to help Abraham," Erin shrugged out of his iron grip and fought past Daryl.

Daryl was confused. The girl was throwing herself into danger head-on and her only response to it was to ignore the warnings and carry on going about as recklessly as she could. Daryl knew that he was no better himself, but he wasn't trying to get himself killed at least. With a grumble, he shook his head and carried on after her, not wanting to leave too much distance between himself and the dark haired girl as he had vowed to himself that he would keep a better eye on her.

Erin crouched down next to Abraham and wiped away the crusting blood from the wound on his forearm. Abraham winced a little as the rubbing alcohol had come into contact with the gash, but he didn't cuss or say anything. Erin would have probably been likely to smack him on the arm and tell him to man up. Recently, she didn't really seem to be in the mood for being light-hearted in any shape of form. Tyreese's death had been her breaking point, Abraham had found out. And her breaking point was not tears and screaming and crying as he had been bracing himself for. It instead had been a silent, deadly anger, not far from Sasha's, that had sent Erin into being some sort of a recluse, shut off from the rest of the world. The only person who seemed to be trying to reach out to her in this state, much to Abraham's surprise, was Daryl Dixon. Rough and tumble Daryl Dixon who put on a front of not caring for anybody was making sure that Erin of all people in the group was okay. And was continuing to survive.

"Let's get going," Erin said in a soft tone reminiscent of the voice Abraham had grown so used to hearing.

She stood up and motioned for Abraham to follow her. And just like that, they were all moving again and acting as if nothing had happened. Acting as if their lives hadn't been seconds away from greeting a lifeline. 

Daryl was later watching Erin's retreating back as he brought up the rear of the group. Her posture was slumped and she no longer walked with any pep in her step, even if there hadn't been that much before. There was still a noticeable change. He was anxious for her, but he didn't know why. She'd made it very clear that she was happy enough alone and handling herself. Even Abraham had taken the hint and backed off from her. Yet, for some reason, Daryl just couldn't.

"Hey man," Glenn said from beside him. "Water?"

He glanced over at the Asian man and looked down at the bottle he was holding. The group had gone out earlier and had managed to gather enough to last them a few hours together. He looked at the warm water and felt his heart clench a little. He didn't want that. He wasn't sure he cared enough to make sure he had the correct provisions to carry on living the way he was anymore. He was suddenly seeing Erin's thoughts and understanding them brighter than day.

"I know you're upset about Beth..." Glenn started.

"Don't," Daryl replied gruffly.

"We can make this, together... But we can only make it together."

Daryl mulled the words over in his head - words that he had said to Glenn himself not that long ago. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to isolate himself from the group. He wanted to be alone, away from human company. He'd rather spend ten minutes with a thrashing Walker than have to put on face for a conversation that he didn't want to have. At least Walkers didn't try to make you talk about your feelings. And Daryl did just that. He isolated himself from the group when they set up camp for the night, hiking out to a clearly in the woods and perching down on a fallen log. He fumbled around in his pockets of his vest for a couple of minutes before drawing a battered pack of cigarettes, removing one of the sticks and propping it between his teeth as he patted his pockets down for a match.

He glanced up in surprise at the sound of light footsteps treading over leaves. Nobody else would have heard it, but as a hunter, Daryl was well accustomed to delicate moving things. His eyes met the willowly frame of Erin as she slowly made her way closer, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her denim jacket. Without even looking at him, she took to sitting on the log beside him, staring out to a barn that sat in the far distance from them. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at the sight. Daryl watched her momentarily before he finally located a match and managed to light up his damp cigarette, taking a deep drag before letting the grey smoke billow out into the air around them.

"You want one?" He asked Erin in a quiet voice that was still loud enough to break through the structured peace.

"No, thanks," She said. "I don't smoke."

Daryl just nodded and said nothing on the matter. The two of them both fell back into an accustomed silence, looking out at the barn as they sat still in the chilly night. Every now and then, Daryl would steal glances over at Erin. Her side profile revealed to him that she had a straight nose and a sharp chin. She looked stern, but at the same time, there was a softness about her, highlighted in her round cheeks. She was a mix between cold and warm, soft and sharp, inviting and threatening all at once. The perfect contradiction.

"My brother used to smoke," She spoke up after a while, surprising Daryl. "A lot. Half of the time on our runs were spent trying to find abandoned boxes of cigarettes - not that anyone was going to ever leave fags behing during an apocalypse."

"They're pretty hard to come by," Daryl smiled slightly at Erin's comment. "I didn't know you had a brother."

"I don't really think many people do. Abe knows. Abe found me when I was alone... after Max had died. We've all had to lose people that way, haven't we? It sucks that that's never going to change. I'm sort of growing used to accepting death."

"How did... Walkers?"

"Yeah. A herd of them encountered us when it was just the two of us left. It should have been me that... that got bit. They were closing in on me but before I could do anything, Max had wedged himself between me and the Walker. He didn't have any bullets to shoot so he just... he shielded me. He got bit instead. I... Together we got rid of the rest of them. Then, he asked me to shoot him. Put him out of his misery. Bury him and keep on moving."

Erin's voice shook as she spoke, but Daryl remained a good listened in patient silence. He wanted to tell her about Merle and about how he had suffered the loss of a brother in a way that was not so different, but he felt that now wasn't the time. He wanted to know more about the enigmatic Erin. He didn't want her to be a mystery to him. Not anymore. 

"Where's he buried?" Daryl asked, taking another drag of his cigarette as he looked ahead, following Erin's stare.

"South Carolina. Months ago now. It was barely a burial... I didn't really have the time to stop and do it. He's in some ditch somewhere covered with leaves and a few handfuls of soil. It was a shitty way for a sister to leave her brother. But, I'm a shitty person."

"You're the least shitties' person I know. Trust me."

"You reckon?"

"Yeah. Look at me. I'm way shittier."

Daryl smiled a little as Erin snorted in laughter. She shook her head in an almost fond manner, leaning back slightly on the log and turning her head to look at Daryl and away from the barn that had captured her attention for the last few minutes.

"You wanted some alone time then?" She asked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin that for you. Glenn said you'd come out here, so I thought I'd come and see if you were okay. Especially as you've been seeing if I'm okay quite a bit these last few days."

Shyly, the woodsman just shrugged. He didn't want to tell Erin why he was constantly checking up on her. She'd duck her head and run a mile if she knew any of what he told himself. Erin lifted a hand to her mouth to begin chewing on a hangnail. Daryl found that she did that along. The skin around her nails was raw and some were so sore that they were beginning to bleed. He reached out and took her hand in his own, tugging it away from her mouth.

Erin was surprised at the feeling of his rough, calloused skin against her own smooth hand. She glanced down at their hands which were loosely held together. Then, her grey eyes flickered up to meet his blue ones and she knew then that there was no way on earth that Daryl Dixon could be a shitty person. No matter what he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, there's the comeback chapter. I hope you enjoyed! I wanted to throw a bit more Erin/Daryl in there.   
> I was asked how I wrote referring to scripts and such - I don't refer to a script of an episode in its entirety as they can be quite difficult to come across good ones, but I tend to use synposises of plots to remind me of the storyline and then I'll pick out certain relevant quotes from the scripts that I want to use. These relevant quotes tend to be things like Abrahamisms and the likes, just because I think they're quite iconic. Other than that, I just follow the storyline but make up my own 'stage directions' and dialogue for characters, so if you ever read something and think "hang on, that didn't happen in the episode???" or "so and and so didn't do that???" I am super sorry, I'm just roughly following a plot and referring to scripts and episodes in between.
> 
> Thank you for reading x


	15. We are the Walking Dead

The storm raged on outside the barn, the weak structure of the wooden walls and thatched roof quivering beneath the pressure of it all. Erin sat up against the far wall, her knees drawn into her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs as she stared into the campfire that Maggie laid in front of. For the most part, everyone in the group was silent. Abraham, Rosita and Eugene sat a little way away from Erin, mumbling chatter under their breaths. Rick sat with Carol, Carl and Judith. Erin smiled as Carl rocked his baby sister back and forth in his thin arms. Sasha was turned away not far from Erin - Abraham soon went to attempt to comfort her, though Erin wasn't sure if it had much merit. Gabriel, Noah, Glenn, Tara, Michonne... they were all here. 

Daryl was propped up against the door of the barn. He'd been watching Erin for a couple of minutes as she sat in peace admist the thunderstorm. Her hair was dripping, soaked through from the group's run from the roadside to the barn, where he was sure he'd actually heard her laugh out loud. It was a sweet sound, even if it was brief and still had the sharpness of a grater lining the edge of it. It was still a sound that resonated with him. She ran her hand through her damp hair and picked at her wet t-shirt that was clinging to her skin. He could tell she was uncomfortable, but they were all in the same boat. There was nothing he could do for her.

Erin glanced up as Glenn slid down the wall beside her. He looked emotionally drained, his eyes never leaving Maggie's face which was glowing orange from the bittersweet warmth of the campfire flames. They shared a small smile. 

"How are you holding up?" Glenn asked.

Over the last few days, it had been Maggie, Sasha, Daryl and Erin who the group had been keeping their eyes on. Maggie, for the loss of her sister. Sasha, for the loss of her brother. Daryl, for the sudden closure to his blooming friendship with Beth and his guilt ridden eyes. And Erin, for feeling partially responsible for Tyreese's death and for finally reaching her breaking point, as Abraham had consistently warned everyone - 'she's on the verge of something bad'. Glenn liked Erin. She'd been the first person from the new additions to the group that he'd trusted and hadn't minded chatting with. He'd noticed a difference in her these past few days, but now, she seemed to be on the mend. He had an odd feeling it was something to do with Daryl Dixon. In the pair's grief and misery, they seemed to grow closer and repair each other's war wounds.

"Fine," Erin's eyes flashed over to Sasha for a quick second. "It is what it is. How's Maggie? I know... I know you've been finding it difficult to get through to her. I'm sure she'll be okay, though... I... I'm really sorry about what happened to Beth, Glenn."

"It's not your fault," Glenn shrugged. "It's nobody's fault. Not even Daryl's, no matter what he tells himself."

"You think he really blames himself for all of this?"

The two were talking in hushed tones, hoping that nobody, particularly Daryl or Maggie, would hear what they were discussing. Glenn looked at his wife with sad eyes. She'd only just lost her father. There had barely been enough time to mourn Hershel before the next Greene family member had been snatched from their grasp.

"He blames himself for a lot," Glenn nodded slowly. "Remember the story I told you about Sofia?"

"About how he searched for days and came back empty-handed when you found out she was dead? Yeah."

"Daryl... tends to blame himself for a lot that goes wrong in this group. Rick, too. They feel like they have a responsibility over all of us. That it's their job to keep us all breathing and moving. But, not everyone is destined to live in this world. Things have a weird way of working out."

Erin glanced at Glenn out of the corner of her eye. For a man so young, he was a fountain of wisdom. He always seemed to know what to say and how to say it, even when nobody expected him to. Glenn put it down to the close bonds he had shared with Dale and Hershel, both men who had known what they were talking about in their years of experience and could link any past memory of their own to the topic. Glenn missed a lot of people and knew he would only come to miss more. His eyes flickered around the group. He'd never even thought about what it would be like to lose any of the people in this group, in this barn right now. He didn't want to think about it.

As the rain and the thunder carried on through the night, the group came closer together and sat around the campfire. Erin was leant against Abraham's side, her head resting on his broad shoulder as he sipped from a bottle of liquor that he was still managing to somehow preserve from weeks ago. Daryl sat across from her at the campfire, beside Carol and not far from the door of the barn. He watched the dark haired girl with the grey eyes cautiously. Sometimes when Abraham would say something that only she and maybe Rosita could hear, she would spare him a small smile. A smile enough to tell Daryl that she was okay and that she was going to be okay.

"My grandfather served in World War Two," Rick was saying to the group that had now lapsed into silence for their leader to talk. I used to ask him whether he had to kill any Germans during the time that he served but he would never answer... But then when I asked him about whether the Germans tried to kill him, my grandpa got real quiet. He told me that he was dead the minute that he entered enemy territory. Every day when he woke up, he would tell himself 'rest in peace, now get up and go to war'. After a few years of pretending that he was dead, he made it out alive... I think that's the trick. We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead."

Erin's head lifted at those words. We are the walking dead. Everyone seemed to be immersed in deep thought at Rick's story of his grandfather and the moral of it all. We are the walking dead. Erin looked around at the group. Were they? 

"We ain't them," Daryl spoke up suddenly in his gruff voice.

"I know," Rick reassured him. "We're not like them out there. We're not the same. I know, Daryl."

"We ain't them." Daryl repeated himself and pushed himself up to his feet, stepping away from the campfire that the rest of the group sat around. 

A few eyes trailed after him as he headed over to the door of the barn, taking up to pacing in front of it. The rest of the group decided to call it a night, agreeing that some sort of watch system would take place, with Daryl on first patrol. Erin offered that she would go next. Rick thanked her and told Daryl to make sure that he woke Erin up when he was staring to feel tired. Daryl just shot the young woman a hooded look that she passed off as him simply acknowledging her.

Erin couldn't get to sleep. She realised that most people around her were exactly the same. Shuffling and grumbles surrounded the barn and half of the group weren't even pretending to be asleep at this point. Michonne was sat up against one of the walls of the barn, twisting her katana blade back and forth between her slender fingers, the reflection of the blade glinting whenever it caught the dwindling flame of the campfire. Erin watched the warrior woman for a couple of minutes, contemplating what it would be like to be as fearless as she was, going into everything without a second thought, no matter what the potential consequence might be. She wished that she could. But instead, Erin was the type of person who selfishly allowed others to die for her or because of her.

Her mind overflowing with negative thoughts that were once again consuming her, she pushed herself up from the ground and stretched her arms out in front of her, hearing the joints click with a satisying noise. Michonne watched as the other woman stretched out her limbs like a cat. Erin was running her hands through her loose hair when she caught Maggie standing up out of the corner of her eye. The woman rushed to the barn door where Daryl was already standing, pressing against the wood. Blocking the door. 

With confusion, Erin stepped closer to the two of them as they stood with palms against the splintering material. It wasn't until she heard a thump on the other side, above even the thunder, and saw the weight of the door shift and buckle slightly under Daryl and Maggie's weight that she realised something was on the other side. And with the groans and moans, she guessed that the something happened to be Walkers. Eventually, the entirety of the group caught on, and they were soon all pressing themselves against the barn doors, calling to each other as they began to sweat from the exertion of keeping back the threat that they could not yet see.

Erin strained and her boots slipped against the wet ground as she struggled to keep upright footing, shoving against the door and praying under her breath that the Walkers wouldn't breech their temporary safe haven. Was it too much to ask for just a couple of hours of peace and sanity? 

The thunder continued raging on overhead as the group fought against the barn door.

*

When Erin woke the next morning, her head was stuffy and she was confused about the position she was sprawled in. She didn't remember much about the night before. She sat up with a groan and held a hand to her pulsing head. It was reminiscent of all that time ago, waking up on a Sunday morning with a hangover and cursing aloud as she realised she had homework to mark for the day ahead of her. In spite of herself, she couldn't help but smile. It was the small things that reminded her of what life once was - what life could have continued to be.

The doors of the barn were open and only a few members of the group remained cooped up inside. The thunderstorm had stopped and the morning sky was a brilliant blue, birds chirping blissfully cheerful tunes overhead. Erin stood at the door, staring out to the chaos and destruction of dozens of Walkers crushed and impaled by trees that had been dragged down upon them during the storm. She was surprised that the barn was still standing and protecting them. Thin walls tended not to do much for a person. 

"Sleeping Beauty lives," A voice spoke up from behind Erin.

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled wryly at Abraham as he came to stand beside her, hands on his hips as he stared out at the landscape of destruction. The whole group seemed to be milling around in close vicinity, except Maggie and Sasha. Erin breezed past it as she turned her face up to invite the sun to beat its warm rays down upon her.

"How long was I out?" Erin asked.

"A while," Abraham said. "Longer than the damned baby. Who knew you had it in you?"

"This reminds me exactly of what waking up with a hangover feels like."

"At least you don't actually have a hangover."

"With what you were drinking last night, I guess you do?"

Erin laughed at Abraham's bashful expression. She felt like she hadn't laughed properly in a while. It was nice. It felt nice. It made her feel warm inside. Calm and relaxed. Her eyes looked back out of the barn once more and she saw that Daryl was approaching, his crossbow slung over his shoulder and the muscles rippling his tanned arms as he crossed the threshold and into the barn without saying so much of a word to either of them, let alone a good morning. Abraham rolled his eyes as Erin turned on her heel and stalked over him. She waited for him to set down his crossbow and straighten up again before speaking.

"Much out there?" She asked, knowing that wasn't really what she'd wanted to begin her line of questioning with.

"Except a few dozen dead Walkers," Daryl muttered. "There ain't shit out there. Sleep well?"

It seemed that apparently everyone had taken notice to how long Erin had been zoned out from the world. She gave Daryl a short smile as she tugged her hair up into its normal high ponytail, securing it with the elastic band that she had double tied around her frail wrist. Daryl had noticed how petite she was becoming as time passed. She'd always been small in stature, but now she looked ill with it too, and that's when he knew that this world was sucking the sheer life out of her. He sighed. He'd have to change that for her sometime - for the whole group. Yesterday, they had come across a package of bottled waters, with a note 'from a friend'. Eugene had wanted to drink the water - they all had - but Rick had insisted that it was a trap and that they couldn't just go about accepting such things. Who had been watching them?

Daryl slumped down on the ground of the barn and began to work away at his crossbow, giving it the clean that it deserved. After a second, Erin invited herself to sit down across from him. He raised an eyebrow at her but didn't say anything. He knew that she probably just wanted company. Heck, he couldn't deny that he wanted it too.

"Daryl..." Erin sighed. "I know it seems like I don't care sometimes, but... are you okay?"

She'd opened up to him yesterday, and he'd somewhat opened up to her. Daryl frowned. He was not a man that did that often, and it wasn't going to start becoming a regular occurence just because a pretty girl who he spent 24/7 of his time with wanted to talk about his feelings. Yes, he checked up on her and yes, he looked out for her more than he probably did anyone else in the group, but that didn't mean he was going to devote his backstory and his deepest, darkest secrets to her. It was a one time thing. Daryl Dixon didn't usually do affection and feelings, at least not in public where anyone could see or hear him. He knew that Erin wasn't that type of girl either, and he guessed that she was probably struggling to ask such a seemingly simple question as 'are you okay?'.

"Are you?" Daryl shot back, not bothering to lift his head to meet her gaze.

"Still kicking," She muttered; Daryl smirked. "You know what I mean, though. I'm not talking about general day to day life... I'm... you were there for me when I wanted to talk about my brother, when I wanted to cry about Tyreese. I can be there for you... if you want me to, that is."

"I don't wan' ta talk about Beth."

Erin sighed. At least he answered directly referring to the topic, rather than beating around the bush. Erin wondered if he loved Beth. Not as a friend or a group member, but as something else. His eyes darkened at the mention of her and although Erin hadn't ever really experienced the full extent of love herself, she wondered if someone like Daryl might have. If someone like Daryl would hurt over losing a significant other. Beth was young, she knew that, but did age really matter in times like this? Erin wasn't even sure how old Daryl was in comparison to her. All she knew was that he was a closed book that she wanted to force open, even if it was for just a few pages worth of words.

There was a shuffling at the barn door as Rick had risen to his feet and Erin glanced up as Sasha and Maggie walked back through the doors. Accompanied by someone else. Someone she had never seen before. A young man dressed in a flannel shirt and a windbreaker. Everyone in the group hurriedly got to their feet, flocking closer to the stranger and dashing their hands to weapons in reach just in case they might need them, despite very clearly having outnumbered them. Maggie handed Rick a gun, and Erin guessed that it belonged to the man who had his palms raised and faced to the group in surrender. As if he had done something wrong and didn't want them to hurt him.

"I'm Aaron."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a lil' filler chapter as I felt like writing. Hope you guys liked! Now that Aaron has been introduced, I can start on the Alexandria scenes, which I'm really looking forward to.
> 
> Has anybody got any Daryl or Negan fanfictions that they would recommend? I don't mind which platform, I read on essentially every site! I've just been feeling major Negan trash recently. What can I say? I like a bad guy.
> 
> Have a good week X


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